EMANUEL       SWEDENBORG 
Born  J any  29.1688  Died  Mar.29. 1772. 


THE 


LIFE    AND    MISSION 


OF 


EMANUEL  SWEDENBORG. 


BY 


BENJAMIN    WORCESTER. 


"  Nunc  licet  intellectualiter  intrare  in  arcana  fidei." 

^*t^\B  R  A  ft  y"v 

, 

OF  THE 

f  UNIVERSITY   I 

OF 


BOSTON: 

ROBERTS     BROTHERS. 
1883. 


Copyright,  1883, 
BY  BENJAMIN  WORCESTER. 


PRINTED    BY    JOHN    WILSON    AND    SON, 
UNIVERSITY    PRESS. 


PREFACE. 


THE  good  name  of  EMANUEL  SWEDENBORG  is  no 
longer  in  question.  In  place  of  being  denounced  as 
a  heretic,  he  begins  to  be  recognized  by  Christian 
students  in  all  denominations  as  a  pioneer  of  the  ad- 
vanced theology  fast  finding  its  way  into  the  thought 
of  the  Churches. 

We  need  not  now  documents  to  prove  the  ability, 
the  soundness  of  mind,  the  laborious  acquisitions,  the 
deep  philosophic  insight,  the  sincerity  and  the  honor 
of  the  man.  Rather,  we  want  to  be  shown  from  the 
limitations  of  his  human  nature,  from  the  trials  and 
the  training  given  his  heart  and  mind,  from  the  grace 
and  the  new  spirit  vouchsafed  him,  on  the  one  hand ; 
and  on  the  other  hand,  from  the  need,  the  nature,  and 
the  result  of  his  mission,  —  that  this  was  the  work, 
not  of  his  own  will  and  unaided  intellect,  but  of  the 
will  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  under  the  guidance  of 
His  Holy  Spirit. 

In  this  study,  while  the  spirit  of  adulation  finds  no 
place,  our  love,  esteem,  and  sympathy  cannot  but 


131673 


iV  PREFACE. 

greatly  increase,  as  with  our  fellow-servant  we  learn 
to  give  all  the  praise  to  Him  whom  he  loved  to  serve. 
And  our  task  is  reduced  to  setting  in  such  order  the 
things  most  surely  believed  among  us,  as  will  cause 
us  to  listen  to  Swedenborg's  own  words  and  to  be- 
lieve with  him  that  they  were  not  from  himself,  but 
from  the  Spirit  of  Truth. 

Of  all  previous  biographies  of  Swedenborg  men- 
tion will  be  made  in  the  Appendix.  Let  us  here  but 
express  our  obligations  to  the  first  known  to  us,  by 
Mr.  Nathaniel  Hobart,  which  will  always  be  held  in 
grateful  remembrance ;  and  to  the  most  complete  by 
far,  the  collection  of  Documents,  in  three  large  octavo 
volumes,  by  the  indefatigable  Rev.  R.  L.  Tafel ;  from 
which,  as  in  most  authentic  form,  the  greater  part  of 
our  material  has  been  drawn.  To  these  Documents 
and  to  Swedenborg's  published  works  the  student  is 
referred  for  further  research. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PAGE 
INTRODUCTORY.  —  SWEDENBORG'S  PLACE  IN  HISTORY.     ...      i 

CHAPTER  II. 
SWEDENBORG'S  PARENTAGE 15 

CHAPTER  III. 
CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH.  —  STUDIES  ABROAD.  —  D^DALUS     .    33 

CHAPTER  IV. 
ASSESSORSHIP.  —  EMPLOYMENT  BY  CHARLES  XII 59 

CHAPTER  V. 
TWENTY  YEARS'  LABOR.  — OPERA  PHILOSOPHICA 83 

CHAPTER  VI. 
PHILOSOPHICAL  STUDIES 109 

CHAPTER  VII. 
PHILOSOPHICAL  STUDIES  CONCLUDED 135 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
SPIRITUAL  PREPARATION 169 

CHAPTER  IX. 
OPENING  OF  SPIRITUAL  SIGHT 195 


VI  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  X. 

PAGE 

OPENING  OF  THE  SCRIPTURES 229 

CHAPTER  XL 
ASSESSORSHIP.  —  THE  ARCANA.  —  THE  APOCALYPSE     .    .    .    .261 

CHAPTER  XII. 
DOCTRINAL  TREATISES 291 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
CONCLUSION  OF  LIFE.  —  FRIENDS  OF  LATER  YEARS    ....  321 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

STORIES  OF  SPIRITUAL  SIGHT.  — DR.  BEYER.  — OPPOSITION  BY 
THE  CLERGY 345 

CHAPTER  XV. 
FRIENDLY  ACCOUNTS  OF  SWEDENBORG 371 

CHAPTER  XVI. 
HOME  LIFE  OF  SWEDENBORG 393 


APPENDIX. 

I -XII.  NOTES  APPENDED  TO  TEXT 419-442 

XIII.  PORTRAITS  OF  SWEDENBORG 4^ 

XIV.  WRITINGS  OF  SWEDENBORG 444 

XV.  PRINCIPAL  DATES  IN  SWEDENBORG'S  LIFE    ....  453 

XVI.  BIOGRAPHIES  OF  SWEDENBORG 454 


INDEX 4S9 


THE    LIFE    AND    MISSION 


OF 


EMANUEL    SWEDENBORG 


THE  LIFE  AND   MISSION 


OF 


EMANUEL    SWEDENBORG. 


CHAPTER   I. 

INTRODUCTORY. — SWEDENBORG'S   PLACE   IN   HISTORY. 

NEVER  had  the  outlook  for  Christianity  been  darker  than 
during  the  period  embraced  by  Swedenborg's  life,  from  1688 
to  1772.  In  the  time  of  Martin  Luther  the  corruptions  of 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church  were  possibly  more  flagrant, — 
although,  says  Mosheim,  in  the  seventeenth  century  "the 
corruptions,  both  in  the  higher  and  in  the  inferior  orders  of 
the  Romish  clergy,  were  rather  increased  than  diminished,  as 
the  most  impartial  writers  of  that  communion  candidly  con- 
fess." l  But  in  the  determined  and  unscrupulous  effort  through 
the  Jesuits  to  enslave  the  world,  as  witnessed  in  the  cruel 
expulsion  of  Protestants  from  France  in  1685,  and  in  the  per- 
sistent attempt  to  substitute  its  own  authority  with  the  people 
for  that  of  the  Word  of  God,  as  witnessed  in  the  Bull  Uni- 
genitus,2  1713,  the  Church  at  Rome  was  clearly  pressing  on 
to  its  doom,  as  was  seen  by  its  best  friends  and  lamented 
with  piteous  wail.3 

In  the  Protestant  Church,  on  the  other  hand,  the  very  in- 
stinct of  rational  thought  which  had  given  it  birth  was  now 
casting  off  all  restraint,  denying  its  creed,  and  on  the  point  of 
rejecting  even  "the  Headstone  of  the  corner."  The  result 

1  MACLAINE  :  Mosheittfs  Ecclesiastical  History,  vol.  ii.  §  ii.  part  i.  ch.  36. 

2  Appendix  I.  3  Appendix  II. 

I 


2  SWEDENBORG'S   PLACE  IN   HISTORY. 

might  have  been  different  had  charity  been  given  its  due 
place  in  the  scheme  of  the  Reformers.  But  now  kindness  of 
heart  as  well  as  sound  reason  revolted  against  the  bondage  of 
faith  alone,  found  not  less  galling  than  that  of  Rome  herself, 
"Take  away,"  cried  Chillingworth,  " this  persecuting,  burn- 
ing, cursing,  damning  of  men  for  not  subscribing  to  the  words 
of  men  as  the  words  of  God ;  require  of  Christians  only  to 
believe  Christ,  and  to  call  no  man  Master  but  Him  only ;  let 
those  leave  claiming  infallibility  that  have  no  title  to  it,  and  let 
them  that  in  their  words  disclaim  it,  disclaim  it  likewise  in  their 
actions ;  in  a  word,  take  away  tyranny,  which  is  the  devil's 
instrument  to  support  errors,  .  .  .  and  restore  Christians  to 
the  first  and  full  liberty  of  captivating  their  understandings  to 
Scripture  only."1  "The  opinions  expressed  on  the  part  of 
the  so-called  orthodox  party"  (in  Germany),  says  Dr.  Dorner, 
"  show  that  the  Church  had  again  become  to  them  the  self- 
centred  possessor  of  direct  Divine  authority,  endowed,  once 
for  all,  with  Divine  powers  and  privileges ;  as  if  the  Holy 
Spirit  had  relinquished  His  direct  relation  to  souls,  nay,  had 
abdicated  His  power  and  energies  in  favor  of  the  Church  and 
her  means  of  grace."  2 

John  Albert  Bengel,  perhaps  the  greatest  theologian  of  his 
generation,  lived  and  died  (1752)  in  expectation  of  a  speedy 
judgment.  "It  is,"  said  he,  "as  if  spiritual  winter  is  coming 
on;  it  is  a  miserably  cold  time,  and  an  awakening  must 
come.  .  .  .  The  power  of  reason  and  nature  is  exaggerated 
beyond  measure,  so  that  we  shall  soon  not  know  what  is  faith 
and  grace,  and,  in  a  word,  what  is  supernatural.  .  .  .  The 
doctrine  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  already  gone ;  that  of  Christ 
is  on  the  wane ;  and  that  of  the  creation  hangs  by  only  a 
slender  thread.  ...  It  is  made  a  part  of  politics  to  so 
act  and  speak  as  to  leave  no  trace  of  religion,  God,  and 
Christ."  3 

1  LESLIE  STEPHEN  :  History  of  English  Thought  in  the  jSth  Century,  i.  76. 

Dr.  J.  A.  DORNER  :  History  of  Protestant  Theology,  Eng.  ed.  ii.  213. 
3  HAGENBACH  :  History  of  the  Church  in  the  i&th  and  igth  Centuries,  i.  383. 


DECAY   OF   RELIGION.  3 

"As  far  as  Christology  is  concerned,"  says  Dorner,  "a 
declension  from  the  ancient  Lutheran  doctrine  concerning  the 
Person  of  Christ  had  long  set  in  even  among  the  orthodox 
divines.  The  edifice  of  Lutheran  Christology  had  been, 
for  the  most  part,  already  forsaken  by  its  inhabitants  before 
I75O.1  .  .  .  A  deistical  atmosphere  seemed  to  have  settled 
upon  this  generation,  and  to  have  cut  it  off  from  vital  com- 
munion with  God.  To  order  one's  self  according  to  mere 
natural  reason  and  self-complacency  in  this  finite  state  of  ex- 
istence, and  to  think  of  nothing  beyond  it,  were  regarded  as 
true  wisdom  and  sound  common-sense.  Religion  was  con- 
verted into  morality,  and  morality  into  the  politic  teaching  of 
Eudaemonism,  in  a  coarser  or  more  refined  form."2 

"Atheism,"  said  Leibnitz,  in  the  early  part  of  the  century, 
"  will  be  the  last  of  heresies ;  and  in  effect  indifference,  which 
marches  in  its  train,  is  not  a  doctrine,  for  genuine  Indifferents 
deny  nothing,  affirm  nothing ;  it  is  not  even  doubt,  for  doubt 
being  suspense  between  contrary  probabilities  supposes  a  pre- 
vious examination :  it  is  a  systematic  ignorance,  a  voluntary 
sleep  of  the  soul.  .  .  .  Such  is  the  hideous  and  sterile  mon- 
ster which  they  call  indifference.  All  philosophic  theories,  all 
doctrines  of  impiety,  have  melted  and  disappeared  in  this  de- 
vouring system,  .  .  .  this  fatal  system,  BECOME  ALMOST  UNI- 
VERSAL. .  .  .  The  state  to  which  we  are  approaching  is  one 
of  the  signs  by  which  will  be  recognized  that  last  war  an- 
nounced by  Jesus  Christ :  Nevertheless,  when  the  Son  of  Man 
cometh,  shall  He  find  faith  on  the  earth  ?  "  3 

In  England  the  Deistic  atmosphere  brooded  over  the  land 
through  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  then  coming 
to  final  dissolution  in  the  scepticism  of  Hume,  who  issued 
his  Natural  History  of  Religion  in  1 75  7,  and  therein  attempted 
to  show  that  Religion  owed  its  origin  to  the  tendency  of  the 
human  mind  to  personify  the  causes  of  phenomena.  In  the 
same  year,  1757,  appeared  Brown's  Estimate  of  the  Manners 

1  Dr.  DORNEII  :  Op.  cit.  ii.  274.  2  Ibid.  ii.  296. 

3  PALMER  :  Treatise  on  the  Church  of  Christ,  i.  348. 


4  SWEDENBORG'S   PLACE   IN   HISTORY. 

and  Principles  of  the  Times,  showing  their  chief  characteristics 
to  be  "  a  vain,  luxurious,  and  selfish  effeminacy."  "  Our  prin- 
ciples," said  he,  "are  as  bad  as  our  manners ;  religion  is  uni- 
versally ridiculed,  and  yet  our  irreligion  is  shallow.  Thus  by 
a  gradual  and  unperceived  decline,  we  seem  gliding  down 
from  ruin  to  ruin  ;  we  laugh,  we  sing,  we  feast,  we  play,  and  in 
blind  security,  though  not  in  innocence,  resemble  Pope's 
lamb,  licking  the  hand  just  raised  to  shed  his  blood." 1 

In  1690  John  Evelyn  had  noted  in  his  Diary  the  predic- 
tion of  the  Bishop  of  St.  Asaph  that  the  judgment  would  come 
in  thirty  years ;  and  he  himself,  gentleman  and  courtier,  wrote 
that  if  ever  corruption  betokened  a  judgment  at  hand,  then 
was  the  time.  In  1713,  in  a  Pastoral  Charge  to  his  clergy, 
Bishop  Burnet  said  :  "  I  see  the  imminent  ruin  hanging  over 
the  Church,  and  by  consequence  over  the  whole  Reformation. 
The  outward  state  of  things  is  bad  enough,  God  knows ;  but 
that  which  heightens  our  fears  rises  chief  from  the  inward 
state  into  which  we  have  unhappily  fallen."  In  1748  the 
excellent  David  Hartley  said,  in  his  Observations  on  Man : 

"There  are  six  things  which  seem  more  especially  to 
threaten  ruin  and  dissolution  to  the  present  States  of  Chris- 
tendom — 

"  i.  The  great  growth  of  atheism  and  infidelity,  particularly 
amongst  the  governing  parts  of  the  States. 

"2.  The  open  and  abandoned  lewdness  to  which  great 
numbers  of  both  sexes,  especially  in  the  high  ranks  of  life, 
have  given  themselves  up. 

"  3.  The  sordid  and  avowed  self-interest  which  is  almost 
the  sole  motive  of  action  in  those  who  are  concerned  in  the 
administration  of  public  affairs. 

"4.  The  licentiousness  and  contempt  of  every  kind  of 
authority,  divine  or  human,  which  is  so  notorious  in  inferiors 
of  all  ranks. 

"5.  The  great  worldly-mindedness  of  the  clergy  and  their 
gross  neglect  in  the  discharge  of  their  proper  functions. 
1  LESLIE  STEPHEN  :  Op.  cit.  ii.  195. 


IMMORALITY   OF   THE   TIME.  5 

"  6.  The  carelessness  and  infatuation  of  parents  and  ma- 
gistrates, with  respect  to  the  education  of  youth,  and  the 
consequent  early  corruption  of  the  rising  generation." 

According  to  Abbey  and  Overton, — 

"  It  was  about  the  middle  of  the  century  when  irreligion 
and  immorality  reached  their  climax.  In  1753  Sir  John 
Barnard  said  publicly :  '  At  present  it  really  seems  to  be 
the  fashion  for  a  man  to  declare  himself  of  no  religion.' 
In  the  same  year  [Archbishop]  Seeker  declared  that  immo- 
rality and  irreligion  were  grown  almost  beyond  ecclesiastical 
power.  .  .  .  If  we  ask  what  was  the  state  of  the  lower  classes, 
we  find  such  notices  as  these  in  a  contemporary  historian : 
'  1729-30.  —  Luxury  created  necessities,  and  these  drove  the 
lower  ranks  into  the  most  abandoned  wickedness.  It  was 
unsafe  to  travel  or  walk  in  the  streets.  .  .  .  1731.  —  Profligacy 
among  the  people  continued  to  an  amazing  degree.'  H. 
Walpole  writes  of  1751  :  'The  vices  of  the  lower  people  were 
increased  to  a  degree  of  robbery  and  murder  beyond  ex- 
ample.'"1 

The  thirty  years  of  peace  following  1714,  though  materially 
"  the  most  prosperous  season  that  England  had  ever  experi- 
enced," were  nevertheless,  says  Pattison,  "one  of  decay  of 
religion,  licentiousness  of  morals,  public  corruption,  profane- 
ness  of  language,  —  a  day  of  rebuke  and  blasphemy."2 

If  such  was  the  condition  in  sober,  moral  England,  we  need 
not  say  that  in  France  it  was  far  worse.  Not  to  describe  the 
manners,  let  us  only  hear  one  or  two  of  the  public  utterances 
of  the  time.  In  1758  appeared  at  Paris  the  essay  of  Helve- 
tius,  De  r Esprit,  of  which  it  was  said  by  a  famous  woman 
that  it  uttered  only  the  secret  of  all  the  world.  "  Self-love  or 
interest,"  says  the  author,  "is  the  lever  of  all  our  mental 
activities.  .  .  .  But  since  all  self-love  refers  essentially  only 
to  bodily  pleasure,  it  follows  that  every  mental  occurrence 
within  us  has  its  peculiar  source  only  in  the  striving  after  this 

1  ABBEY  and  OVERTON  :    The  English  Church  in  the  \Wi  Century,  ii.  44. 

2  M.  PATTISON:  Tendencies  of  Religious  Thought  in  England,  1688-1750. 


6  SWEDENBORG'S   PLACE   IN   HISTORY. 

pleasure ;  but  in  saying  this  we  have  indicated  where  the 
principle  of  all  morality  is  to  be  sought.  It  is  an  absurdity  to 
require  a  man  to  do  the  good  simply  for  its  own  sake.  .  .  . 
Hence  if  morality  would  not  be  wholly  fruitless,  it  must  return 
to  its  empirical  basis,  and  venture  to  adopt  the  true  principle 
of  all  action  ;  namely,  sensuous  pleasure  and  pain,  or,  in  other 
words,  selfishness  as  an  actual  moral  principle." 1 

La  Mettrie,  who  died  in  1751,  declared  everything  spiritual 
to  be  a  delusion,  and  physical  enjoyment  to  be  the  highest 
end  of  man.  He  says, — 

"  Faith  in  the  existence  of  a  God  is  as  groundless  as  it  is 
fruitless.  The  world  will  not  be  happy  till  atheism  becomes 
universally  established.  ...  In  reference  to  the  human  soul 
there  can  be  no  philosophy  but  materialism.  All  the  observa- 
tion and  experience  of  the  greatest  philosophers  and  physi- 
cians declare  this.  Soul  is  nothing  but  a  mere  name,  which 
has  a  rational  signification  only  when  we  understand  by  it 
that  part  of  our  body  which  thinks.  This  is  the  brain.  .  .  . 
Immortality  is  an  absurdity.  The  soul  perishes  with  the 
body  of  which  it  forms  a  part.  With  death  everything  is 
over  :  la  farce  est  jouee!  "  2 

Whether  in  grim  humor  or  in  earnest,  it  was  in  perfect 
keeping  with  the  times  that  Cabanis  was  said  to  have  dis- 
covered religion  and  poetry  to  be  the  product,/  some  say 
function,  of  the  small  intestines.3  Well  might  Carlyle  say,  in 
his  Life  of  Frederick  the  Great?  — 

"A  century  so  opulent  in  accumulated  falsities/ — sad  opu- 
lence, descending  on  it  by  inheritance,  always  at  compound 
interest,  and  always  largely  increased  by  fresh  acquirement 
on  such  immensity  of  standing  capital,  —  opulent  in  that  bad 
way  as  never  century  before  was  !  Which  had  no  longer  the 
consciousness  of  being  false,  so  false  had  it  grown ;  and  was 
so  steeped  in  falsity,  and  impregnated  with  it  to  the  very  bone, 

1  SCHWEGLER:  History  of  Philosophy >,  p.  235. 

2  Ibid.  239. 

3  See  Carlyle's  Essay  on  the  Signs  of  the  Times. 
*  Vol.  i.  p.  u. 


A   NEW  AGE  OF   THE  CHURCH.  J 

that — in  fact  the  measure  of  the  thing  was  full,  and  a  French 
Revolution  had  to  end  it." 

Were  not  observers  of  the  times  justified  in  thinking  that 
the  judgment-day  of  the  Church  was  at  hand?1  Was  not 
her  sun  in  heaven  darkened?  Did  not  her  moon,  faith  in  the 
sun,  fail  to  give  its  light?  Were  not  her  stars,  knowledges  of 
Divine  truth,2  all  falling  from  their  place?  Could  her  au- 
thority and  power  for  good  fall  lower  ?  Could  greater  abuses 
possess  her  citadels,  sins  more  needing  condemnation?  Was 
not  her  measure  full  ?  Had  not  Bengel  reason  to  think  that 
God's  "mighty  judgments"  were  about  to  come? 

Let  us  suppose  that  Bengel  has  slept  these  hundred  and 
thirty  years,  and  now  we  awake  him.  We  take  him  on  the 
Sabbath-day  to  all  the  churches  in  the  land.  Everywhere, 
in  church  and  Sabbath- school,  he  hears  his  beloved  Gospel 
read  with  reverence  and  charity,  and  the  Commandments 
taught,  with  the  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus.  Of  predestination, 
of  the  damnation  of  infants  and  the  heathen,  he  happily  hears 
not  a  word.  Take  him  on  the  week-day  through  the  public 
schools,  to  the  charitable  institutions,  to  the  Bible  societies, 
where  he  may  see  the  Gospel  in  a  hundred  and  fifty  lan- 
guages, ready  to  be  sent  from  pole  to  pole,  from  sun  to  sun. 
Take  him  to  his  own  home  in  Germany,  and  let  him  meet 
the  British  Bible-Society  agent  on  his  mission  there.  Let 
him  go  into  the  old  theological  halls  and  hear  the  doctors 
reverently  carrying  on  the  exegetical  study  that  he  himself 
introduced ;  patiently  and  laboriously  discovering  in  all  the 
Scriptures  the  things  concerning  their  Lord ;  3  discarding  with 
care  such  teachings  of  the  later  Church  as  he  condemned ; 
with  all  their  might  reconciling  philosophy  with  Christianity ; 4 
earnestly  seeking  to  bring  to  view  the  Personal  Christ  as  the 

I  KUrtz,  referring  to  the  remarkable  number  of  mystical  pietists  in  the  first 
half  of  the  i8th  century,  says:  "  The  utterances  which  took  place  in  an  ecstatic 
state  were  exhortations  to  repentance,  to  prayer,  to  imitation  of  Christ,  revela- 
tions of  the  Divine  will  in  regard  to  the  affairs  of  society,  and  announcement  of 
the  approaching  judgment  of  God  over  the  degenerate  world  and  Church." 
2  Swedenborg.  3  Appendix  III.  *  Appendix  IV. 


8  SWEDENBORG'S   PLACE  IN   HISTORY. 

real  Divine  impersonation ;  in  short,  as  Dorner  says,  regenerat- 
ing theology.1  Let  him  see  with  them  side  by  side,  almost 
hand  in  hand,  the  advanced  Catholic  theologians,  pursuing 
the  same  studies,  with  nearly  the  same  results.2  And,  does 
he  ask  more  about  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  show  him 
the  temporal  power  a  suppliant  at  every  Court  in  Europe,  but 
the  spiritual  power  never  so  great  in  restraining  the  evil  pas- 
sions of  men,  in  educating  and  curing  souls.  And,  does  he 
ask  about  Papal,  clerical  corruptions,  tell  him  that  their  day  is 
past ;  they  are  forgotten.  Let  him  sit  with  us  day  by  day  and 
read  the  constantly  surprising  utterances  of  hopeful  faith  from 
the  pulpit,  from  the  press,3  from  royal  lips,  from  dying  states- 
men ;  and,  overlooking  the  wide  margin  of  lost  ground  yet 
to  be  recovered  by  the  Church,  will  he  not  joyfully  exclaim 
that  he  was  right ;  that  the  judgment  was  coming,  and  is  now 
passed ;  that  the  "  spiritual  winter  "  is  over ;  that  "  the  good 
and  pleasant  spring  weather  gains  the  upper  hand,  and  the 
verdure  breaks  out  from  beneath  the  snow;"4  that  the  Day- 
spring  from  on  high  is  now  again  visiting  His  people  ? 

So  Hagenbach,  in  his  History  of  the  Church  in  the  Eighteenth 
and  Nineteenth  Centuries :  — 

"Vehement  storms,  quite  beyond  human  control,  have 
broken  through  the  badly  kept  enclosure,  and  have  borne  off 

1  "Regenerated  German  theology  exercises,  in  the  present  century,  a  very 
powerful  influence  upon  foreign  Reformed  Churches.    Since  about  1750,  indeed, 
their  own  theological  activity  may  be  said,  in  many  instances,  to  have  stagnated ; 
they  have,  therefore,  been  the  more  easily  affected,  though  some  decayed  sub- 
sequently, by  the  movements  of  German  theology."  —  Dr.  DORNER:  History 
of  Protestant  Theology,  ii.  473. 

2  "  In  the  history  of  recent  German  Catholicism  .  .  .  we  again  find  solid 
ground ;  for  a  more  intimate  reciprocity  exists  between  the  Protestants  and 
Catholics  in  Germany  than  in  France.      German  science  is  the  beautiful  bond, 
uniting  those  who  adhere  to  different  confessional  standpoints.  .  .  .  Protest- 
ants and  Catholics  have  been  nourished  as  twin-brothers  at  the  same  breast  of 
German  philosophy,  though  each  one  has  assimilated  his  nourishment  differently. 
The  Catholic  and  the  Protestant  theology  of  Germany  have  passed  through  the 
same  stages  of  development."  —  HAGENBACH  :   Op.  cit.  ii.  440. 

3  As  we  write,  we  read  in  a  daily  journal :    ' '  American  publishers  are  un- 
willing to  print  essays  or  books  of  professed  atheists." 

*  Bengel's  words  quoted  by  Hagenbach. 


WHEN    THE  JUDGMENT  CAME.  g 

what  had  been  well  nurtured.  Volcanoes  have  sent  forth 
their  long-restrained  fires,  and  the  lava-stream  has  flowed  over 
many  a  happy  field.  But  there  have  come  into  play  those 
healing  forces  which  are  as  little  within  the  grasp  of  human 
power  as  the  destructive  ones.  Bright,  fruitful  sunbeams  have 
announced  the  dawn  of  a  new  age,  and  a  Higher  Voice  than 
that  of  man  has  called  out  of  the  chaos  new  creations,  whose 
germ  could  scarcely  have  been  imagined  in  the  preceding 
centuries."  l 

So  Dr.  John  Cairns,  in  his  essay  on  Unbelief  in  the  Eighteenth 
Century :  — 

"  Not  only  was  the  Deistic  wave  rolled  back  by  the  dikes 
opposed  to  it,  but  by  a  higher  influence  was  made  to  fertilize 
the  recovered  soil.  The  beleaguered  fortress  was  not  only  set 
free,  but  in  its  lowest  depths  was  opened  a  spring  of  living 
water.  .  .  .  Christianity  has  not  been  saved  to  us  in  Great 
Britain  mainly  by  the  arguments  of  Butler  and  Sherlock,  but 
by  the  slow  yet  sure  revival  that  began  to  spread  over  the 
whole  English-speaking  world ;  nor  was  Germany  rescued 
from  rationalism,  in  so  far  as  it  has  been,  merely  by  profes- 
sors and  theologians  meeting  negative  criticism,  but  by  the 
return  of  visible  Christianity,  and  by  the  calling  forth  of 
prayer  which  has  power  with  God.  Here,  as  everywhere, 
faith  has  brought  victory  ;  and  who  that  contrasts  the  fortunes 
and  prospects  of  Christianity  almost  anywhere  in  the  last 
quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century,  with  what  they  were  in  the 
eighteenth,  can  deny  that  Christianity  has  not  only  survived 
but  overcome?"2 

As  unanimous  as  is  the  testimony  to  the  increasing  corrup- 
tion and  desolation  of  the  Church  up  to  the  middle  of  the 
last  century,  so  unanimous  is  the  testimony  to  the  amendment 
and  revivification  during  the  century  now  past.  And  if  Ben- 
gel  should  inquire  of  us  what  time  the  sick  man  began  to 
amend,  the  answer  would  be  remarkable  :  it  could  be  no 
other  than,  "Yesterday  at  the  seventh  hour  the  fever  left 
him."  3  The  seventh  hour  with  the  Jews  was  the  hour  past 

1  Vol.  ii.  p.  2.  2  Pages  87,  191.  3  John  iv.  52. 


IO  SWEDENBORG'S   PLACE  IN   HISTORY. 

noon.  The  decade  after  the  middle  of  the  last  century  is 
constantly  referred  to  by  English  and  German  historians  as 
the  period  of  the  downfall  of  Deism.  Thus  Dr.  Dorner :  — 

"  A  further  result  of  the  conflicts  and  disorders  in  the  re- 
gion of  politics,  morals,  and  religion  was  the  appearance  of 
Deism  after  the  second  half  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and 
its  unchecked  and  triumphant  progress  till  about  1750.  ... 
In  1750  many  who  desired  that  the  excellence  of  Christian 
morality  should  be  admitted,  owned  their  obligations  to  Deism 
for  having  delivered  them  from  superstition  and  dogmatism. 
Thus  was  Deism  dreaming  of  its  victory  over  Christianity. 
.  .  .  But  it  was  just  now,  when  in  the  public  opinion  of  the 
educated  world  the  victory  of  Deism  seemed  in  a  scientific 
aspect  decided,  and  when  being  unobstructed  by  opponents 
it  was  to  begin  to  develop  the  supposed  fulness  and  self- 
assurance  of  Deistic  reason,  in  the  place  of  that  Christianity 
which  it  rejected,  that  its  emptiness  became  apparent,  and  it 
incurred  the  fate  of  all  negative  criticism.  It  had  uncon- 
sciously been  living  upon  its  adversary,  theological  science ; 
and  when  this  succumbed,  it  fell  with  it."1 

This  testimony  of  "  the  greatest  living  theologian,"  in  his 
History  of  Protestant  Theology,  to  the  common  fall,  just  after 
1750,  both  of  the  old  "theological  science,"  belonging  to  the 
scheme  of  faith  alone,  and  of  Deistic  reason,  is  noteworthy. 
So  again  Leslie  Stephen  :  "  Every  creed  decays  ;  or  certainly 
the  creed  decayed  in  this  instance,  as  it  became  incapable  of 
satisfying  the  instincts  of  various  classes  of  the  population, 
and  the  perception  of  its  logical  defects  was  the  consequence, 
not  the  cause,  of  its  gradual  break-up.  .  .  .  Towards  the 
middle  of  the  century  the  decay  of  the  old  schools  of  theology 
was  becoming  complete.  Watts  died  in  1 748  ; 2  Doddridge 

1  Dr.  DORNER  :  Op.  cit.  ii.  90. 

2  With  the  going  to  sleep  of  the  good  man  and  of  the  Church  at  about  the 
same  hour,  it  is  pleasant  to  associate  his  own  tender  evening  prayer :  — 

"I  lay  my  body  down  to  sleep, 
Let  angels  guard  my  head; 
And  thro'  the  hours  of  darkness  keep 
Their  watch  around  my  bed." 


THE  DRAGON  AND  BABYLON  FALLEN.        I  I 

in  1 75 1 ;  the  good  Bishop  Wilson  died  in  his  ninety-third 
year,  in  I755-"1 

While  thus  in  Germany  and  England  the  doctrines  of  the 
Protestant  Church  were  engaged  in  a  death  struggle  with  its 
own  offspring,  Deism,  in  France  Jesuitism,  in  behalf  of  Papal 
supremacy,  was  engaged  in  a  similar  struggle  with  Jansenism, 
a  new  Calvinistic  offshoot  still  clinging  to  the  mother  Church. 
The  immediate  bone  of  contention  was  the  Bull  Unigenitus, 
which  was  specially  aimed  at  the  Jansenist  Testament  of 
Father  Quesnel.  For  forty  years  the  contention  had  gone 
on.  It  was  perceived  by  both  sides  to  involve  the  question 
of  existence.  From  1753  to  1755,  Parliament  espoused  the 
cause  of  the  Jansenists,  running  the  risk  of  excommunica- 
tion. In  1756  Louis  XV.  interposed  to  save  the  Jesuits,  and 
by  an  act  of  supreme  sovereignty  compelled  Parliament  to 
register  an  edict  in  favor  of  the  Bull.  Great  excitement  en- 
sued, and  a  severe  conflict  for  three  years  longer,  when  of  a 
sudden  the  Jesuits  found  their  power  with  the  King  mysteri- 
ously gone.  The  same  year,  1759,  tnev  were  expelled  from 
Portugal,  in  1764  from  France,  and  in  1773  the  order  was 
abolished  by  Papal  decree.  Not  less  plainly  than  of  Protest- 
ant dogma  and  Protestant  Deism,  is  the  breaking  point  of 
Romish  domination  seen  to  have  been  in  the  seventh  hour 
of  yester-century. 

The  fever  had  left  the  man  as  dead.  There  was  now  no 
longer  any  Church  power  existing.  Romanism  had  failed. 
Lutheranism  and  Calvinism  had  failed.  Deism,  or  scientific 
religion,  had  failed.  Hume  had  proved  with  incontestable 
logic  that  natural  reason  was  powerless  to  substantiate  a  re- 
ligion. The  fountain  of  living  waters  was  forsaken ;  cis- 
terns were  hewn  out,  broken  cisterns ;  they  could  hold  no 
water.2  The  desolation  was  complete.3  And  yet  in  honest 
hearts  there  remained  good  soil  in  which  the  seed  of  the 
Gospel  was  even  then  springing  up  to  bear  fruit  a  hundred- 
fold. Had  not  their  Lord  said  of  John,  the  apostle  of  love 

1  Op.  cit.  i.  381,  388.  2  Jeremiah, ii.  13.  3  Appendix  V. 


12  SWEDENBORG'S  PLACE   IN   HISTORY. 

and  good  works,  "  What  if  I  will  that  he  tarry  till  I  come  ?  " 
though  Peter,  the  apostle  of  faith  in  Him,  should  have  grown 
old  and  been  carried  where  he  would  not,  even  unto  the 
death?1 

The  story  of  the  good  seed  sown  by  many  in  many  lands, 
notably  by  Spener  and  Zinzendorf  in  Germany,  Wesley  and 
Whitefield  2  in  England  and  America,  is  too  long  for  us  here 
to  tell.  Suffice  it  that  the  sowing  seems  to  have  been  that  of 
John  the  Baptist,  rather  than  that  of  the  Son  of  Man,  calling 
forth  indeed  fruit  meet  for  repentance,  but  fruit  still  partaking 
too  much  of  the  old  root  and  of  human  weakness. 

Neither  can  we  tell  of  the  terrible  devastation  that  followed 
in  France,  whence  the  good  soil  of  Protestantism  had  been 
expelled,  when  infidelity  came  to  cope  with  the  failing  power 
of  Romanism  ;  and  it  was  as  if  seven  devils  had  been  brought 
back  more  wicked  than  the  first.  What  we  have  to  do  is  to 
inquire  whether  our  good  Bengel's  judgment — the  judgment 
foretold  by  our  Lord  in  Matthew,  and  foreshadowed  to  John 
in  vision  —  has  really  taken  place,  or  whether  we  are  to  look  for 
another  such  time  of  desolation,  and  worse.  God  forbid  the 
latter  conclusion  !  Possibly  it  would  be  like  the  Jews'  await- 
ing their  Messiah.  We  have  seen  strong  indications  of  a 
crisis,  of  the  turning  of  the  fever,  soon  after  the  middle  of  the 
last  century.  At  that  very  time,  culminating  in  1 75  y,3  Sweden- 
borg  tells  us  that  the  vision  of  the  judgment,  described  in  the 
Apocalypse,  was  fulfilled  in  all  particulars,  not  in  this  world, 
but  in  the  world  of  spirits,  on  those  who  had  been  collecting 
there  through  the  long  centuries  of  Christian  misrule. 

1  According  to  Schelling:  "  The  periods  of  the  Church  are  typified  by  the 
three  principal  Apostles,  Peter,  Paul,  and  John.      Of  these  periods  the  first 
two,  Catholicism  and  Protestantism,  have  passed ;  while  the  third,  Johannine 
Christianity,  is  approaching."  —  SCHWEGLER  :  History  of  Philosophy,  p.  390. 

2  We  are  not  unmindful  that  both  the  Pietism  of  Spener  and  the  Moravian- 
ism  of  Zinzendorf  contained  elements  of  weakness,  and  lost  in  time  their  power 
for  good  ;  and  that  the  religion  of  Wesley,  and  still  more  that  of  Whitefield,  con- 
tained a  leaven  of  Calvinism  which  has  to  die.     Yet  they  all  incited  an  active 
faith  and  desire  for  new  life.     See  Appendix  VI. 

3  The  year  when  began  the  "Seven  Years'  War;"  and,  according  to  Hume. 
"in  1758  the  war  raged  in  all  quarters  of  the  world." 


THE   WITNESS   TO  BE   HEARD.  13 

The  thought  is  new ;  but  what  more  reasonable  ?  Clearly, 
the  judgment  should  not  be  on  a  single  generation  of  men. 
The  whole  idea  and  description  forbid.  But  it  has  been  as- 
sumed that  all  these  generations  which  had  gone  would  return 
to  the  earth  to  be  judged.  What  more  unreasonable  ?  This 
could  be  only  by  the  assumption  again  of  earthly  bodies,  and 
the  day  for  such  a  supposition  is  gone  by.  We  do  not  hesi- 
tate to  say  that  such  a  spiritual  fulfilment  as  Swedenborg  de- 
scribes is  the  only  one  that  in  this  age  can  be  accepted.1 
There  will  remain  then  the  question  of  time.  What  time 
more  probable,  when  we  take  into  view  the  nearness  and  the 
connection  of  the  one  world  with  the  other,  than  the  time 
when  the  old  life  of  the  Church  came  to  its  end,  there  was 
a  pause,  and  then  new  life  with  astonishing  power  began  to 
spring  forth  ?  In  short,  what  time  more  probable  than  when 
Bengel  felt  it  must  come,  and  would  now  believe  it  did  come  ? 
Is  any  time  conceivable  in  the  future  more  probable?  It 
will  not  do  to  fall  back  on  the  old  idea  of  "  the  end  of  the 
world."  No  one  of  common-sense  now  believes  that  this 
world  will  come  to  an  end  within  practically  conceivable  time. 
Every  one  knows  that  the  Greek  words  mean  "  the  consum- 
mation of  the  age."  (Matt.  xxiv.  3  ;  xxviii.  30.)  Need  we 
look  for  a  more  thorough  consummation  of  a  Christian  age 
than  was  that  of  the  last  century  ? 2 

One  question  remains  :  how  does  Swedenborg  profess  to 
know  this  ?  He  says  that  he  was  permitted  to  witness  it,  the 
eyes  of  his  spirit  being  opened  for  the  purpose.  But  is  that 
possible?  All  things  are  possible  to  Him  who  openeth  the 
eyes  of  the  blind.  But  for  what  purpose  did  the  Lord  grant 
so  great  a  privilege  to  one  man  ?  Through  him  to  tell  it  all  to 
us,  —  all  about  heaven  and  hell  that  in  this  new  age  we  need 
to  know ;  and  most  of  all  to  unfold  to  us  in  all  the  Scriptures 
the  things  concerning  Himself,  as  seen  in  His  own  light, — the 

1  What  other  was  the  judgment  accomplished  at  our  Lord's  first  coming, 
when  He  beheld  Satan  as  lightning  fall  from  heaven  ? 

2  Appendix  VII. 


14  SWEDENBORG'S   PLACE   IN   HISTORY. 

light  of  heaven ;  in  short,  to  reveal  in  His  Word  the  transparent 
stones,  the  gates,  the  wall,  and  the  streets  of  His  Holy  City, — 
His  tabernacle  ready  to  descend  to  us  out  of  heaven. 

No  demonstration  of  the  need  of  such  a  revelation,  of  its 
coincidence  with  prophecy,  of  fit  attendant  circumstances, 
avails  for  its  establishment.  We  ask  with  reason,  Can  any 
good  thing  come  out  of  Nazareth?  The  only  thing  to  do  is 
to  come  and  see.  To  the  disciples  of  John  the  Baptist,  who 
are  many  in  these  days,  and  who  come  to  learn  whether  this 
is  what  was  to  come,  the  only  answer  can  be,  See  whether, 
being  blind,  you  will  now  receive  sight ;  being  lame  you  will 
walk ;  being  deaf  you  will  hear ;  being  dead  you  will  be  raised 
up ;  being  poor  you  will  have  the  Gospel  preached  to  you. 
If  such  are  the  works  of  the  revelation  of  Divine  and  heavenly 
truth  in  the  Sacred  Scriptures,  by  the  hand  of  Swedenborg, 
blessed  are  they  who  are  not  offended  therein.  At  the  same 
time,  admitting  the  possibility  of  such  revelation,  it  is  most 
natural  and  proper  to  inquire  as  to  its  medium  ;  what  fitness  he 
had  for  such  a  mission,  and  in  what  manner  he  performed  it. 
It  is  these  inquiries  that  we  are  to  find  answered  in  the  fol- 
lowing pages,  bearing  in  mind,  however,  that  it  is  a  suitable 
man  of  the  age  that  we  are  to  look  to  see  ;  not  an  imaginary 
one  of  the  future,  nor  a  traditional  one  of  the  past.  When  the 
Lord  has  new  things  to  say  to  men,  He  says  them  through 
one  whose  ideas  and  language  are  those  of  the  men  to  whom 
He  would  speak.1 

1  "  Great  transitions  commonly  find  their  beginnings  in  a  single  soul.  Their 
source  is  apparently  insignificant,  and  generally  undetected,  until  the  stream  of 
history  has  revealed  its  power."  —  Rev.  GEORGE  MATHESON  :  Gro-wth  of  the 
Spirit  of  Christianity,  vol.  i.  p.  330. 


CHAPTER   II. 

SWEDENBORG'S  PARENTAGE. 

IN  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  while  our  New 
England  fathers  were  clearing  land  and  making  new  homes 
for  themselves  in  the  American  wilderness,  where  they  might 
worship  Go,d  and  bring  up  their  children  according  to  their 
own  conscience,  the  grandfather  of  Emanuel  Swedenborg, 
Daniel  Isaksson,1  was  rearing  his  family  on  his  homestead 
called  "Sweden,"  near  Fahlun,  a  hundred  and  twenty  miles 
northwest  from  Stockholm.2  Daniel,  like  his  father  before  him, 
was  a  miner  and  mine-owner,  "  honest,  far  from  worldly  pride 
and  luxury,  and  bent  upon  speaking  the  truth."  For  the  sake 
of  his  large  family  of  children,  he  piously  thought,  his  under- 
takings were  prospered.  One  of  twenty-four  hard-working 
miners  who  succeeded  in  draining  a  deserted  mine,  with  the 
rest  he  became  wealthy.  Far,  however,  from  being  made 
proud  by  his  prosperity,  Daniel  Isaksson  would  often  say 
while  at  dinner,  "Thank  you,  my  children,  for  this  meal,  for 
I  have  dined  with  you,  and  not  you  with  me  ;  God  has  given 
me  food  for  your  sakes." 

Daniel's  son  Jesper,  born  in  1653,  took  the  name  of  Swed- 
berg,  from  the  homestead.  The  father's  piety  was  continued 
in  the  son,  and  was  strengthened  at  an  early  age  by  his  rescue 
from  great  peril.  A  flood  caused  a  small  mill-stream  in  the 
neighborhood  to  overflow  its  banks.  Jesper  and  an  older 
brother  stood  near  the  mill.  The  brother  sprang  on  a  beam 

1  Isaksson,  or  Isaacsson,  was  the  son  of  Isaac  Nilson,  who  was  the  son  of  Nils 
Ottesson,  who  was  the  son  of  Otto,  of  Sundborg,  an  opulent  miner. 

2  The  facts  of  this  sketch  of  the  Swedberg  family  are  mainly  drawn  from 
the  Swedish  Biografhiskt  Lexicon,  as  translated  in  Tafel's  Documents,  No.  10. 


1 6  SWEDENBORG'S    PARENTAGE. 

that  crossed  the  stream,  and  dared  Jesper  to  follow.  Not  to 
be  outdone,  he  made  the  attempt,  but  fell  into  the  stream 
and  was  swept  under  the  wheel.  Catching  his  feet,  the  wheel 
stopped,  but  held  him  fast.  With  great  exertions  he  was  got 
out,  apparently  lifeless.  No  wonder  that,  after  his  life  was 
brought  to  him  again,  he  resolved  "never  to  forget,  either 
morning  or  evening,  to  commit  himself  to  God's  keeping,  and 
to  the  protection  of  the  holy  angels."  It  was  a  marked  feature 
of  his  whole  after  life  to  believe  in  Divine  interposition  and 
protection.  From  a  child  it  used  to  be  his  greatest  delight 
to  read  the  Bible  and  preach,  in  his  way,  to  poor  people. 
Unfortunate  in  his  early  teachers  at  Upsal,  he  went  at  sixteen 
to  Lund,  where  he  had  good  instruction,  but  developed  youth- 
ful conceit.  "  When  I  went  to  Upsal,"  he  says,  "  I  was  dressed 
in  blue  stockings,  Swedish  leather  shoes,  and  a  simple  blue 
mantle.  I  never  ventured  to  go  forward  in  church,  but  always 
remained  near  the  benches  of  the  common  people.  But  in 
Lund  I  became  as  wordly-minded  as  the  rest.  I  procured 
for  myself  a  long,  black  wig, —  I,  too,  was  dark  and  tall ;  to 
this  I  added  a  large,  long  overcoat,  and  above  all  a  scarf  over 
my  shoulders,  such  as  wordly-minded  people  wore.  In  my 
own  opinion,  there  was  no  one  equal  to  me ;  I  thought  all 
should  make  room  for  me,  and  take  off  their  hats  very 
humbly  in  my  presence." 

Fortunately  this  young  pride  was  early  abashed.  At  the 
age  of  twenty-one,  after  a  little  travelling  in  Denmark,  Jesper 
applied  to  Magister  Brunner,  at  Upsal,  for  a  theological 
scholarship.  "Brunner,  astonished  at  the  student  dress  of 
Lund,  which  Swedberg  had  not  yet  laid  aside,  looked  at  him 
sharply,  crossed  himself,  and  asked  whether  he,  who  was 
dressed  in  such  a  worldly  manner  and  in  court  costume, 
desired  to  become  a  minister  of  the  gospel.  Swedberg  did 
not  wait  to  be  asked  this  question  a  second  time.  He  went 
home,  took  off  the  offensive  garb,  and  purchased  a  simple 
grayish-black  cloak ;  and  this,  he  added,  was  done  just  at 
the  right  time."  Magister  Brunner  soon  learned  to  like  the 


JESPER  SWEDBERG'S   YOUTH.  I/ 

young  man,  and  after  two  years  took  him  into  his  own  house 
as  tutor  to  his  son.  "In  Brunner's  house,"  says  Swedberg, 
"I  learned  much  that  was  good,  both  in  respect  to  man- 
ners and  to  literary  acquirements ;  but  especially  I  learned 
how  to  lead  a  pious,  honorable,  and  serious  life ;  for  he  him- 
self was  spiritually-minded,  both  in  his  conversation  and  in 
his  intercourse  with  others,  in  his  dress  and  in  his  whole 
being." 

After  a  full  course  of  study  and  several  years'  practice  in 
preaching  in  the  parish  of  his  preceptor,  who  died  in  1679, 
Swedberg  received  in  1682  his  degree  of  Magister.  In  the 
following  year  he  was  married;  and  in  1684,  with  the  aid  of 
his  wife's  fortune,  he  travelled  in  England,  where  he  was  deeply 
impressed  with  the  sanctity  with  which  Sunday  was  observed  ; 
and  in  France,  where  he  was  struck  with  the  Catholic  care  of 
the  poor  and  needy,  in  seeing  "  how  the  wealthier  members 
of  the  community  went  out  in  the  evening  into  the  streets 
and  lanes,  to  look  after  the  poor,  the  sick,  and  those  without 
shelter ;  how  distinguished  ladies  and  countesses,  dressed  in 
common  garments,  sought  the  sick  and  the  helpless,  and  ex- 
hibited towards  them  as  much  mercy  as  they  would  towards 
their  own  blood  relations."  In  Belgium,  Holland;  and  Ger- 
many he  visited,  as  was  customary,  men  distinguished  for 
^iety^and  erudition.  At  Strasburg  he  became  the  guest  of 
Professor  Bebel,  and  formed  a  valued  intimacy  with  him  and 
with  Professor  Sebastian  Schmidt,  then  doubtless  at  work  on 
his  Latin  translation  of  the  Bible,  which  became  the  text 
of  Swedenborg's  exposition.  These  learned  men  Swedberg 
thereafter  called  his  "two  spiritual  fathers."  At  Frankfort 
he  had  a  desire  to  visit  Spener,  the  originator  of  the  Pietistic 
movement,  but  was  prevented  by  Spener's  illness.  Meeting 
there  Ludolphus,  and  blushing  at  hearing  from  him  that 
no  Swedish  grammar  had  ever  been  published  in  Sweden, 
he  made  it  a  point  later  in  life  to  write  a  grammar,  and  in 
other  ways  to  make  zealous  efforts  for  the  purity  of  the  lan- 
guage. At  Hamburg  he  lived  some  time  with  the  learned 


1 8  SWEDENBORG'S   PARENTAGE. 

and  pious  Edzardus,  delighted  with  his  zeal  in  converting 
the  Jews,  and  with  his  patriarchal  simplicity,  as  he  laid  his 
hands  upon  the  heads  of  his  grown-up  children  and  blessed 
them,  "just  as  the  patriarch  Jacob  blessed  his  sons  Ephraim 
and  Manasseh,  and  just  as  Christ  blessed  the  little  children." 
"I  am  unable,"  said  he,  "to  describe  in  what  a  godly  and 
earnest  manner  this  man  lived ;  may  God  bless  his  soul  in 
His  eternal  kingdom  ! "  Such  were  the  forming  influences 
that  the  young  preacher  sought  and  found,  while  others  found 
but  sinks  of  iniquity.  In  them  we  must  see  mirrored  his  own 
heart's  delight. 

Returning  home  in  August,  1685,  Swedberg  was  ordained 
and  appointed  chaplain  to  the  King's  Regiment  of  Life 
Guards.  In  the  absence  of  the  regiment  in  Upland,  he  took 
up  his  residence  at  Stockholm,  where  he  often  preached  as 
royal  chaplain,  though  he  did  not  receive  formal  appointment 
till  1689.  Not  satisfied  with  occasional  preaching  to  his  regi- 
ment, he  taught  the  soldiers  their  catechism.  At  first  question- 
ing they  trembled,  much  more  than  under  fire  of  the  enemy. 
But  soon  they  pressed  upon  him,  and  could  not  hear  enough. 
In  his  zeal  he  promised  to  give  a  catechism  to  every  man  of 
the  regiment  who  could  read  it  at  the  next  annual  inspection. 
There  were  then  three  hundred  who  could  read.  The  next 
year  there  were  six  hundred,  and  our  poor  preacher  had  to  beg 
the  King's  assistance  to  pay  for  his  catechisms.  An  uncounted 
handful  of  ducats  was  the  royal  response.  /  The  straight- 
forward honesty  of  Swedberg,  frank  and  blunt  to  a  fault, 
always  gained  the  sovereign  ear,  wearied  with  the  hypocrisy 
of  the  Court.f  Charles  XL,  in  want  of  public  funds,  trenched 
severely  on  the  manorial  rights  of  his  people.  Swedberg,  as 
royal  chaplain,  preached  from  the  text,  "Ye  hate  the  good 
and  love  the  evil ;  ye  pluck  off  their  skin  from  them  and  their 
flesh  from  off  their  bones,  and  eat  the  flesh  of  my  people ; 
and  when  ye  have  flayed  their  skin  from  off  them,  ye  break 
their  bones  also  in  pieces," — making  the  application  plain. 
"  Shall  the  parson  speak  in  this  style  ? "  asked  an  officer  of 


SWEDBERG  AND   CHARLES  XI.  19 

the  King.  "  Did  the  parson  confirm  his  sermon  by  God's 
Word?"  asked  the  King  in  reply.  The  complainant  could 
not  say  nay,  and  the  King  dismissed  him  thus  royally :  "  If 
the  parson  has  God's  Word,  the  King  has  nothing  to  say 
against  it." 

Naturally,  in  gaining  the  favor  of  the  King,  the  plain 
preacher  gained  the  enmity  of  many  at  Court,  whose  sins 
he  did  not  spare,  and  by  whom  he  was  often  near  losing  his 
place  and  life.  But  his  honest  boldness,  not  without  a  degree 
of  shrewdness,  always  saved  him.  Having  a  daughter  born 
while  royal  chaplain,  he  was  unwilling  to  have  the  baptism  at 
his  house,  a<Twas~~Yhen  the  fashion,  though  contrary  to  the  law 
of  the  Church.  Going  to  the  King,  he  asked  whether  he  should 
have  his  child  baptized  according  to  the  fashion  of  Stockholm, 
or  according  to  the  law  of  the  Church.  The  King  could  not 
but  say,  ^According  to  the  law  of  the  Church."  "Yes,  but 
I  cannot  do  so,  because  in  that  case  I  shall  get  neither  a 
priest  nor  godparents."  The  King  was  pleased  with  the  bold 
challenge,  and  engaged  to  be  present,  by  his  royal  marshal, 
as  ""godfather,  and  the  Queen  as  godmother.  The  baptism 
took  place  in  church,  though  not  without  the  exercise  of 
royal  authority  to  secure  a  priest.  In  short,  Charles  XI.  had 
so  much  confidence  in  Swedberg  that  he  would  refuse  him 
nothing.  "Ask  of  me  what  you  will,"  said  he  one  day,  "and 
you  shall  have  it."  "  From  that  day,"  says  Swedberg,  "  I  be- 
came more  serious  and  more  earnest  in  everything  I  spoke, 
and  in  everything  I  represented ;  so  that  I  never  asked  for 
anything  either  for  myself  or  for  my  family,  not  even  a  half- 
farthing's  worth.  ...  I  prayed  to  God  fervently  that  I  might 
not  exalt  myself  in  consequence,  nor  abuse  this  favor,  but  that 
I  might  make  use  of  it  for  the  honor  of  God's  name,  for  the 
service  of  His  Church,  and  for  the  sake  of  the  common  wel- 
fare." Thus  in  Church  matters,  especially  in  appointments, 
Swedberg  became  a  frequent  adviser  to  the  King.  Simple- 
hearted,  earnest  men  found  themselves  promoted,  they  knew 
not  how ;  while  many  a  vain  man  found  himself  disappointed. 


2O  SWEDENBORG'S  PARENTAGE. 

As  a  boy,  Svvedberg  had  suffered  under  the  hands  of  an 
ignorant,  drunken  pedagogue.  As  soon  as  he  got  the  ear  of 
the  King,  he  informed  him  of  the  miserable  condition  of  the 
schools.  The  King  was  vexed  that  no  one  had  told  him  the 
truth  before,  and  proposed  to  raise  the  pay  of  all  the  teachers 
in  the  land.  But  Swedberg  showed  him  a  cheaper  and  better 
way, —  to  issue  an  order  for  the  government  of  schools,  giving 
schoolmasters  an  honorable  position,  and  after  three  years' 
good  service  giving  them  preference  for  curacies.  Perhaps 
in  Swedberg  alone  Charles  made  an  exception  to  the  distrust 
he  acquired  in  all  men.  Shortly  before  his  death,  he  said 
to  him,  "I  have  ruled  in  Sweden  three-and-twenty  years. 
When  I  first  became  King,  I  trusted  everybody ;  now  I  trust 
nobody."  To  this  Swedberg  replied,  "That  is  not  right.  To 
trust  everybody  is  foolish,  for  there  are  many  wicked  and  silly 
people."  "The  world  is  full  of  them,"  interposed  Charles. 
"But  to  trust  nobody,"  continued  Svvedberg,  "is  very  bad; 
for  there  are  many  good,  honest,  and  wise  men."  "Ah,  it  is 
now  too  late,"  said  the  King.1 

From  1690  Swedberg  held  the  appointment  of  pastor  at 
Vingaker.  In  1692  he  took  up  his  residence  among  these 
simple  country  people,  with  whom  he  greatly  desired  to  be. 
"The  affection  and  love  which  existed  between  the  congre- 
gation and  myself,"  he  said,  "can  scarcely  be  described. 
They  sufficiently  manifested  their  good-will  towards  me  by 
pulling  down  the  old  dilapidated  parsonage,  and  building  in 
its  stead  a  new  one,  with  many  comfortable  rooms,  without  any 
expense  to  myself.  I  received  there  so  many  marks  of  kind- 
ness and  affection,  that  scarcely  a  day  passed  without  their 
providing  me  richly  with  everything  necessary  for  house-keep- 
ing. At  first  this  pleased  me  very  much,  but  it  afterwards 
fairly  oppressed  and  scared  me."  That  the  good  people 
saw  reason  enough  for  their  affection,  we  may  judge  from  a 
single  specimen  of  their  pastor's  kindness.  To  the  widow 

1  WILLIAM  WHITE:  Emanuel  Sivedenborg, —  His  Life  and  Writings, 
vol.  i.  p.  18. 


SWEDBERG  AT  VINGAKER.  21 

and  children  of  his  predecessor  he  not  only  allowed  the  use 
of  the  parsonage  and  all  its  estate  for  a  year,  but  surrendered 
to  them  half  of  the  income  and  paid  all  their  taxes.  Later  in 
life  he  said  of  himself, — "  So  little  was  I  ever  troubled  about 
receiving  my  stipend,  that  I  never  sent  a  reminder  to  a  farmer 
who  owed  me  his  tithe,  but  was  satisfied  with  what  he  gave  of 
his  own  free-will." 

We  cannot  help  pitying  the  poor  people  of  Vingaker,  as  we 
find  their  pastor  compelled  the  same  year,  when  moving  the 
last  of  his  furniture  into  the  new  vicarage,  to  accept  first  a 
professorship  and  then  the  rectorship  at  the  University  of 
Upsal.  He  himself  would  have  been  a  happy  man  if  he 
could  have  remained  in  the  quiet  seclusion  of  a  country 
pastorate.  He  begged  the  King  to  excuse  him,  as  he  had 
been  unused  to  college  work  for  ten  years.  The  King  insisted 
and  Swedberg  complied,  saying,  "  In  God's  name  it  cannot 
be  helped.  I  shall  do  my  best,  and  fly  to  God  for  help  ;  but 
your  Majesty  must  protect  my  back."  "  I  will  do  that,"  said 
the  King.  Swedberg  stretched  out  his  hand,  saying,  "Will 
your  Majesty  give  me  your  hand  as  an  assurance?"  which 
Charles  at  once  cordially  did.1 

Wherever  Swedberg  was,  he  must  be  a  zealous  reformer ; 
and  so  in  public  stations  he  was  sure  to  encounter  opposition 
frorr)  those  whose  conduct  or  prejudices  he  attacked.  Some 
years  previously,  he  had  been  appointed  by  the  King  on  a 
commission  to  revise  the  Swedish  Bible.  In  his  zealous  way 
he  not  only  pushed  forward  the  revision,  but  also  advanced 
fifty  thousand  dalers  in  copper,2  belonging  to  his  wife  and 
children,  to  import  the  materials  and  workmen  for  printing,  the 
King  guaranteeing  him  against  loss.  The  work  was  fruitless, 
because  of  the  opposition  of  the  clergy.  The  same  fate  was 
shared  at  a  more  advanced  stage  by  a  new  hymn  and  psalm- 
book,  on  which  Swedberg  and  others  bestowed  great  labor. 

1  Op.  tit.  i.  ii. 

2  The  daler  in  copper  was  worth  about  6%  cents,  the  daler  in  silver  about 
iS&  cents.     Fifty  thousand  dalers  in  copper  was,  then,  about  $3,250. 


22  SWEDENBORG'S  PARENTAGE. 

The  book  was  seized  as  soon  as  printed,  and  never  issued.1 
The  ostensible  charge  against  it  was  of  heresy,  because  the 
Saviour  was  called  in  it  the  "  Son  of  Man,"  as  well  as  the 
"  Son  of  God."  But  the  real  objection  was  that  the  clergy 
had  not  all  had  a  hand  in  the  work.  By  order  of  the  King, 
Swedberg  was  repaid  twenty  thousand  dalers ;  but  he  still 
made  a  loss  of  thirty  thousand,  and  his  printer  was  ruined. 

"  Upsal,2  where  Swedberg  now  lived,  was  a  pleasant  city 
of  some  five  thousand  inhabitants,  set  in  a  wide  undulating 
plain,  and  made  up  of  low-built  houses  of  wood  and  stone, 
surrounded  with  gardens.  In  the  centre  of  the  city  stood  the 
grand  cathedral,  esteemed  the  finest  Gothic  building  in  Scan- 
dinavia, where  Sweden's  kings  of  old  were  crowned,  and  the 
bones  of  many  rested.  Built  around  this  '  beautiful  house  of 
God,'  in  a  spacious  square,  were  the  university  buildings,  two 
houses  in  which  Swedberg  owned  as  professor  and  rector. 
Here  in  this  fine  square  our  boy  Emanuel  spent  his  childhood 
and  found  his  play-ground."  3  At  the  university,  where  he 
received  one  professorship  after  another,  Swedberg  had  great 
satisfaction  and  success.  "  It  is  incredible  and  indescribable," 
he  says,  "  what  courage,  consolation,  and  freedom  are  derived 
from  a  pure  and  lawful  vocation ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  how 
much  those  are  disheartened  who  have  not  this  comfort." 
This  he  said  on  entering  the  First  Professorship  of  Theology. 
In  1695  he  was  installed  as  Dean  of  the  Cathedral. 

During  his  ten  years  at  Upsal  he  lectured,  preached,  ex- 
horted, and  examined  the  students  incessantly ;  how  happily, 
we  may  judge  from  his  own  words  :  — 

"  I  experienced  this  grace  from  God,  that  there  was  such 
unity  and  trust  among  the  teachers  that  there  was  never  any 
dissension.  I  lived  in  the  large  square,  and  I  can  affirm  that 

1  Nevertheless,  some  copies  got  over  to  the  Swedish  colony  in  Delaware  ;  and 
a  note  is  preserved  written  by  Swedberg's  son-in-law,  Benzelius,  May,  1742, 
directing  his  son  to  pay  to  his  uncle,  Assessor  Swedenborg,  256  dalers  in  cop- 
per, "  a  part  of  the  sum  paid  by  Momme  for  the  hymn-book." 

2  Thirty-nine  miles  N.N.W.  from  Stockholm. 

3  Op.  cit.  i.  13. 


SWEDBERG  AT   UPSAL.  23 

during  these  ten  years  I  did  not  hear  ten  brawls  or  disturb- 
ances in  the  streets.  When  both  my  buildings  were  burned 
down,  in  the  great  conflagration  after  Ascension-day,  the  stu- 
dents manifested  towards  me  so  much  kindness,  carrying  out 
and  saving  everything  except  the  fixtures,  that,  thank  God  ! 
I  suffered  little  harm ;  and  such  pure  affection  they  constantly 
exhibited  towards  me  during  the  whole  of  my  stay  amongst 
them.  I  can  also  assert  that  during  the  whole  of  this  time 
his  Majesty  never  received  an  unfavorable  report  from  the 
university,  although  previously  these  reports  had  been  very 
unfavorable  indeed." 

Of  the  building  of  one  of  the  dwellings  here  mentioned,  a 
large  stone  house  in  the  square,  Swedberg  tells  a  pleasant 
story :  "  I  know,  and  I  can  testify,  for  I  was  always  present, 
that  not  the  least  work  was  done,  that  not  a  single  stone  was 
raised,  with  sighs  or  a  troubled  mind ;  but  all  was  done  cheer- 
fully and  gladly.  No  complaint,  no  hard  or  disagreeable  word 
was  heard,  no  scoldings  and  no  oaths  were  uttered."  When 
the  house  was  finished,  he  opened  it  by  inviting  and  enter- 
taining all  the  poor  of  the  town, —  himself,  wife,  and  children 
waiting  upon  them, —  and  concluding  the  feast  with  singing, 
prayer,  thanksgiving,  and  mutual  blessing. 

The  conflagration  "after  Ascension-day "  was  sad  to  Swed- 
berg, on  account  of  the  loss  to  his  people,  especially  that  of 
their  cathedral.  In  their  behalf  he  sends  a  touching  petition 
to  the  young  King,  Charles  XII.,  through  his  sister,  the 
Princess  Ulrica  Eleonora.  "  If  only  the  Lord's  own  beautiful 
house  had  been  preserved  !  Our  losses,  although  they  are 
very  great,  can  be  repaired." 

The  answer  to  his  petition  was  an  appointment  as  bishop. 
"  I  had  never  expected  this.  It  was  the  fourth  royal  decree 
I  had  received.  And  with  a  clear  conscience  I  can  declare 
before  my  God,  who  knows  everything,  that  I  never  coveted 
this,  never  opened  my  mouth,  and  never  stirred  a  step,  still 
less  gave  a  farthing,  to  obtain  it.  For  I  had  always  been  an 
enemy  of  all  importuning  and  bribery."  But  Charles  XII.  had 


24  SWEDENBORG'S  PARENTAGE. 

already  begun  to  show  the  same  confidence  in  Swedberg  that 
his  father  had  shown,  and  never  resented,  his  frank  petitions 
for  whatever  seemed  to  him  good. 

In  1698  a  second  tenth-tax  on  the  clergy  had  been  pro- 
posed, to  raise  money  for  war  purposes.  An  effort  was  made 
in  the  chapter  at  Upsal  to  send  a  remonstrance  to  the  King. 
Swedberg  alone  dared  undertake  the  commission.  He  arrived 
where  Charles  was,  on  the  eve  of  the  Sabbath,  and  of  a  mas- 
querade to  be  held  on  that  day.  "Cannot  your  Honor,"  said 
he  to  the  clergyman  of  the  place,  "  preach  the  masquerade 
out  of  the  heads  of  the  King  and  his  lords?  "  To  the  nega- 
tive reply  he  said,  "  Well,  then,  let  me  preach."  He  preached, 
and  no  masquerade  was  held  that  day,  nor  afterwards.  He 
then  drew  up  a  short  petition  to  the  King,  and  wrote  after 
his  name,  "Genesis  xlvii.  22."  The  King  asked  his  attend- 
ants what  it  meant.  They  looked  up  the  passage  and  read  : 
"  Only  the  land  of  the  priests  bought  he  not ;  for  the  priests 
had  a  portion  assigned  them  by  Pharaoh,  that  they  should 
eat  it."  "Let  the  clergy  alone,"  said  his  Majesty,  "and  let 
them  have  what  they  are  accustomed  to  have." 

A  few  years  later,  while  Charles  XII.  was  in  Poland,  pre- 
paring to  invade  Russia,  heavy  pressure  being  brought  on  the 
people  to  furnish  men  and  material  for  war,  Swedberg  wrote 
a  vigorous  protest  to  the  King  against  the  poor  priests'  being 
compelled  to  furnish  a  dragoon  apiece,  by  which  "  some  have 
had  to  borrow  money  at  usury,  and  even  to  sell  their  Bibles, 
in  order  to  rig  out  a  soldier."  With  difficulty  he  persuaded 
the  chapter  at  Skara  to  sign  the  paper ;  but  the  King  received 
it  kindly  and  referred  it  to  the  Defence  Commission,  with 
orders  to  take  the  complaint  into  due  consideration,  and  to 
make  it  as  easy  for  the  clergy  as  possible.  As,  however,  no 
other  chapter  had  been  bold  enough  to  ask  relief,  the  Com- 
mission decided  against  Swedberg,  and  even  compelled  him 
to  furnish  two  dragoons  in  place  of  one.  Still  later,  after 
Charles's  return  to  Sweden,  we  find  the  Bishop  boldly  ask- 
ing similar  favors,  seldom  granted ;  though  the  King  always 


SWEDBERG  AT  BRUNSBO.  25 

received  him  kindly,  conversed  with  him  familiarly,  invited 
him  to  his  table,  and  encouraged  him  in  his  labors  for  the 
good  of  the  people. 

Skara,  Swedberg's  new  diocese,  lies  between  Lakes  Wenner 
and  Wetter,  in  the  southern  part  of  Sweden.  Removing,  in 
1 703,  from  Upsal  to  Brunsbo,  his  seat  near  Skara,  when  just 
fifty  years  old,  he  made  his  home  there  till  he  died,  thirty-two 
years  later.  The  duties  of  his  bishopric  he  fulfilled  with 
characteristic  fidelity  and  vigor.  For  twenty-six  years  he 
said  he  had  never  neglected  to  attend  public  worship,  but  had 
indefatigably  preached  from  the  Gospels  and  Epistles,  had 
held  confessions,  read  with  his  curates,  and  himself  held  the 
examinations  in  the  catechisms,  believing  more  good  to  be 
done  by  them  than  by  artistic  preaching.  "He  followed 
and  recommended  the  simple  analytical  mode  of  preaching, 
where  the  sermons  flowed  without  any  straining  or  forcing 
from  the  text ;  for,  said  he,  '  then  God  recognizes  again 
His  own  Word.'" 

Pietism  at  this  time  had  spread  into  Sweden,  and  was 
branded  as  heresy  by  the  orthodox.  Bishop  Swedberg  at- 
tended a  prayer-meeting  of  the  Pietists,  to  learn  about  them 
for  himself,  and  then  publicly  declared  that  he  could  fully 
approve  of  them,  and  that  it  would  be  very  desirable  for 
every  father  of  a  family  to  hold  similar  meetings  in  his  own 
house.  Boldly  bearing  the  same  testimony  in  the  consistory, 
he  caused  Pietism  to  be  more  leniently  dealt  with  that  year 
in  the  Diet. 

In  1712  the  Bishop's  seat  at  Brunsbo  was  burned,  with 
the  barns  and  outhouses  and  all  their  contents.  Hardest  of 
all  for  him,  all  his  books  and  manuscripts  were  destroyed. 
To  Queen1  Ulrica  Eleonora,  as  after  the  fire  at  Upsal,  he  an- 
nounced his  affliction  with  deep  humility.  "  I  acknowledge 
sorrowfully  my  sins,"  he  said,  "  which  have  provoked  the  wrath 
of  God ;  I  am  thankful,  however,  that  I  am  able  to  bear  it 

1  She  was  not  Queen  till  after  Charles's  death,  in  1718  ;  but  about  this  time 
she  assumed  to  reign  in  his  absence,  for  which  she  was  reproved  on  his  return. 


26  SWEDENBORG'S  PARENTAGE. 

with  such  good  courage."  He  rejoiced  that  his  little  pocket 
Bible  was  saved,  his  companion  for  forty-four  years ;  and  he 
took  comfort  on  finding  unharmed  in  the  ashes  a  copy  of  his 
exercises  in  the  Catechism,  and  a  copper-plate  engraving  of 
himself,  from  which  he  inferred  the  Divine  favor.1 

Over  the  gateway  of  Brunsbo  rebuilt,  Swedberg  placed  the 
words  of  King  David  : 

"THEREFORE  NOW  LET  IT  PLEASE  THEE  TO  BLESS  THE 
HOUSE  OF  THY  SERVANT." 

But  the  poor  man  had  yet  another  fire  to  pass  through,  for 
his  purification.  In  1 730  Magister  Unge  wrote  to  his  brother- 
in-law  Emanuel, — 

"  Most  honored  and  dear  brother, — You  are  probably  aware 
that  Brunsbo  was  again  reduced  to  ashes  by  a  vehement  con- 
flagration between  the  i8th  and  ipth  of  August,  and  the  Bishop 
came  very  near  being  burned  himself.  The  large  wooden 
building  together  with  the  stone  house  is  destroyed,  and 
everything  it  contained.  The  silver  in  the  chest,  as  much  as 
was  in  it,  was  saved,  but  everything  out  of  it,  for  ordinary  use, 
was  lost.  All  our  dear  father's  printed  works,  the  newly  re- 
printed Catechism,  all  his  manuscripts,  with  the  exception  of 
one  copy  of  the  book  of  sermons  and  one  of  the  biography, 
and  his  entire  remaining  library  are  lying  in  ashes." 

This  last  shock  was  too  much  for  his  seventy-seven  years, 
and,  though  he  lived  and  labored  five  years  longer,  his  firm- 
ness and  vigor  were  failing  him.  His  desire  to  be  still  writ- 
ing and  printing  remained,  stimulated  by  his  printer;  but 
his  family  thought  he  was  wasting  his  strength  and  money. 

1  For  this  plate  Swedenborg  wrote  an  inscription : — 

Hcec  erat  in  mediis  fades  ill&sa  favillis 

Cum  deflagravit,  node  fluente,  domus ; 
Sic  quoq tie  post  ignes,  Genitor,  tii<zfam<z,  supremos 

Postque  rogos,  vivet  nomen  amorque  tui. 

"  Unharmed  mid  fiery  ashes  was  this  likeness  found,  when  in  the  passing 
night  the  home  was  burned.  So,  too,  O  Father!  after  the  flames  and  the 
funeral  pile,  thy  good  fame  shall  live  and  love  for  thee." 


SWEDBERG'S   PRINTING.  27 

His  son-in-law,  Magister  Unge,  writes  in  1731  to  Emanuel, 
"Moller  is  now  beginning  to  swindle  the  Bishop  on  a  new 
account ;  for  he  desires  to  print  the  collection  of  sermons 
which  was  burned.  .  .  .  How  will  this  end  if  he  begin 
printing  in  his  poverty  ?  .  .  .  What  will  this  lead  to  ?  The 
Bishop  plunges  himself  more  and  more  into  debt.  He  is 
now  writing  daily  with  great  industry  at  the  two  other  volumes 
of  the  collection  of  sermons,  which  was  burned."  In  1728  he 
had  himself  written  to  a  friend,  "  If  I  had  all  the  money 
which  I  have  invested  in  the  printing  of  books,  I  would  be 
worth  now  from  sixty  to  seventy  thousand  dalers  in  copper." 
Besides  various  religious  works,  he  wrote  and  printed  books 
on  the  Swedish  language,  grammar  and  lexicons,  books  for 
schools,  a  new  translation  of  the  Bible  and  a  Swedish  Com- 
mentary, Pharos  Sacra  America  Illuminata,  and  other  works. 
Much  of  his  interest  in  writing  and  publishing  had  long  been 
in  behalf  of  the  Swedish  colonial  missions,  especially  the  mis- 
sion of  Pennsylvania  and  Delaware.  It  was  by  his  influence 
with  the  King  that  the  first  missionaries  were  sent  to  this 
colony,  and  their  interests  looked  after  until  the  recognition 
of  the  independence  of  the  United  States.  The  colony 
elected  Swedberg  their  first  bishop,  as  did  also  the  Swedish 
churches  at  London  and  Lisbon,  and  this  appointment  was 
confirmed  by  the  King.  To  their  concerns  he  devoted  much 
time  and  labor,  which  they  repaid  with  great  respect  and 
affection. 

In  recounting  Bishop  Swedberg's  public  labors  first,  we 
have  followed  his  own  example,  making  these  duties  always 
of  the  first  importance.  But  at -the  same  time  he  was  emi- 
nently a  family  man,  being  the  affectionate  husband  of  three 
successive  wives,  and  the  loving  father  of  five  sons  and  four 
daughters,  all  children  of  his  first  wife.  Of  these,  however, 
two  sons  died  in  childhood.  Like  his  own  father,  Swedberg 
esteemed  children  as  a  blessing  from  the  Lord,  and  thought 
that  too  much  could  not  be  done  for  them.  "  It  is  really  the 
case,"  said  he,  "that  you  must  never  grudge  expenses,  if 


28  SWEDENBORG'S  PARENTAGE. 

you  desire  your  children  to  grow  up  well."  His  great  desire 
was  that  his  own  children  should  grow  up  in  the  fear  and  love 
of  God.  With  this  at  heart,  he  gave  them  names  that  he 
trusted  would  be  a  help. 

"I  am  fully  convinced,"  he  writes,  "that  children  ought 
to  be  called  such  names  as  will  awaken  in  them,  and  call  to 
their  minds,  the  fear  of  God  and  everything  that  is  orderly 
and  righteous.  .  .  .  The  name  of  my  son  Emanuel  signifies 
( God  with  us ; '  that  he  may  always  remember  God's  pres- 
ence, and  that  intimate,  holy,  and  mysterious  conjunction 
with  our  good  and  gracious  God,  into  which  we  are  brought 
by  faith,  by  which  we  are  conjoined  with  Him  and  are  in 
Him.  And,  blessed  be  the  Lord's  name  !  God  has  to  this 
hour  been  with  him.  And  may  He  be  further  with  him,  until 
he  be  eternally  united  with  Him  in  His  kingdom  !  Eliezer 
signifies  '  God  is  my  help  ; '  and  he  also  has  been  graciously 
and  joyfully  helped  by  God.  He  was  a  good  and  pious  child, 
and  had  made  good  progress,  when,  in  his  twenty-fifth  year, 
he  was  called  away  by  a  blessed  death.  The  youngest  was 
called  Jesper  only  for  this  reason,  that  he  was  born  on  the 
same  day  of  the  year  and  at  the  same  hour  as  myself.  .  .  . 
If  the  name  Jesper  be  written  Jisper,  [in  Hebrew]  '  he  will 
write,'  the  use  has  also  followed  the  name  ;  for  I  believe  that 
scarcely  any  one  in  Sweden  has  written  so  much  as  I  have, 
since  ten  carts  could  scarcely  carry  away  what  I  have  written 
and  printed  at  my  own  expense  :  and  yet  there  is  much,  yea, 
nearly  as  much,  unprinted.  My  son  Jesper  has  also  the  same 
disposition,  for  he  is  fond  of  writing,  and  writes  much.  I  am 
a  Sunday  child ;  and  the  mother  of  my  children,  my  late  wife, 
was  also  a  Sunday  child,  and  all  my  children  are  Sunday 
children,  except  Catharina,  who  was  born  at  Upsal  on  the 
third  day  of  Easter.  I  have  put  my  sons  to  that  for  which 
God  has  given  them  inclination  and  liking,  and  have  not 
brought  up  any  for  the  clerical  profession ;  although  many 
parents  do  so  inconsiderately,  and  in  a  manner  not  justi- 
fiable, by  which  God's  Church  and  likewise  the  ministerial 


SWEDBERG'S   CHILDREN.  2Q 

office  suffer  not  a  little,  and  are  brought  into  contempt.  I 
have  never  had  my  daughters  in  Stockholm,  where  many  are 
sent  in  order  to  learn  fine  manners,  but  where  they  also  learn 
much  that  is  worldly  and  injurious  to  the  soul." 

Of  the  mother  of  Jesper  Swedberg  we  have  little  knowledge. 
Her  name  was  Anna  Bullernaesia,  daughter  of  Magister  Petrus 
Bullernsesius,  pastor  in  Svardsjo.  She  became  the  wife  of 
Swedberg's  father,  Daniel  Isaksson,  about  1640.  Her  son 
Jesper  said  of  her,  "  My  mother  was  to  me  all  that  Monica 
was  to  Augustine."  Of  Swedberg's  own  wife,  the  mother  of 
his  children,  we  know  little  more.  Her  name  was  Sara  Behm, 
of  good  family,  the  daughter  of  an  Assessor  in  the  College  of 
Mines,  the  same  office  that  was  held  so  long  by  her  son 
Emanuel.  Her  first  husband  was  Dean  of  Upsal,  and  left 
her  with  wealth  that  was  of  great  service  to  her  later  husband 
and  children.  She  became  the  wife  of  Jesper  Swedberg  in 
1683,  when  he  was  simply  Magister  Swedberg,  still  preaching 
in  the  prebend  of  his  deceased  friend  Brunner.  Her  first 
child  was  born  during  her  husband's  absence  on  his  travels, 
and  she  named  him  Albrecht,  for  her  own  father.  He  died 
in  childhood.1  The  next  child  was  Anna,  born  in  1686,  who 
became  the  wife  of  Ericus  Benzelius.  To  her  Emanuel,  the 
next  younger,  was  always  sending  kindest  greetings  when 
writing  to  his  brother-in-law.  Emanuel  was  born  on  the  2pth 
of  January,  1688.  while  his  father  was  serving  as  ordinary 
royal  chaplain  at  Stockholm.  After  him  were  born  in  succes- 
sion Hedwig,  Daniel,  Eliezer,  Catharina,  Jesper,  and  Margar- 
etha.  The  last-named  was  born  in  October,  1695,  and  the 
good  mother,  of  whom  we  know  all  too  little,  died  in  June, 
1696,  while  the  rector  was  building  his  large  stone  house  at 
Upsal.  Emanuel  was  then  not  nine  years  old,  and  his  im- 
pressions of  his  mother  have  not  come  down  to  us. 

In  1719  the  family  of  Bishop  Swedberg  was  ennobled  by 

1  Albrecht  died  soon  after  his  mother,  in  1696.  On  his  death-bed  his  father 
asked  him  what  he  should  do  in  heaven.  "  I  shall  pray  for  my  father  and 
my  brothers  and  sisters,"  was  the  reply,  deeply  affecting  the  father. 


.30  SWEDENBORG'S   PARENTAGE. 

Queen  Ulrica  Eleonora,  with  the  name  of  Swedenborg,  and 
his  son-in-law  Benzelius  with  the  name  of  Benzelstierna ;  after 
which  they  were  entitled  to  seats  in  the  Diet.  The  Bishop 
himself  retained  the  name  of  Swedberg,  and  died  with  it, 
1735,  m  tne  eighty-second  year  of  his  life  and  the  thirty- 
third  year  of  his  bishopric.  Since  the  last  fire  his  hand  had 
trembled,  so  that  he  wrote  with  difficulty ;  and  during  the  last 
year  his  memory  had  failed.  But  his  'eyes  were  not  dim  to 
the  day  of  his  death.  With  wonderful  industry  and  persever- 
ance he  had  accomplished  many  undertakings,  while  others 
not  less  worthy — such  as  the  Swedish  translation  of  the  Bible 
— had  failed  through  the  jealousy  of  others.  Previous  to 
his  last  fire  he  had  written  his  autobiography  for  each  of 
his  children.  One  copy  alone,  of  over  a  thousand  pages, 
was  preserved.  This  is  still  in  existence,  but  has  never  been 
printed.  The  name  that  he  has  left  behind  him  is  that  of 
"a  man  who,  if  he  had  lived  a  few  hundred  years  earlier, 
might  have  increased  the  number  of  Swedish  saints,  and 
whose  learning,  industry,  exemplary  life,  good  intentions,  and 
zeal  for  God's  glory  deserve  to  be  venerated  even  by  a  more 
enlightened  century."  But  of  his  real  character  it  will  be 
useful  for  us  to  take  a  closer  view,  in  order  to  be  prepared 
for  what  we  shall  discover  in  the  inheritance  of  his  son 
Emanuel. 

There  can  be  no  mistake  in  attributing  to  Bishop  Swedberg 
great  energy  of  character,  honesty  of  purpose,  bold  frankness 
of  expression,  hereditary  and  early-acquired  piety,  and  kind 
love  for  his  fellow-men.  His  long  life  was  spent  in  hard,  enter- 
prising labor,  with  no  obvious  selfish  interest,  but  for  the  good 
of  mankind.  And  withal  he  was  constantly  acknowledging 
God  as  the  source  of  all  blessings,  and  the  permitter  of  all 
punishment.  All  the  misfortunes  that  come  to  him,  he  con- 
fesses to  be  deserved  recompense  for  his  sins  ;  for  all  the  good 
he  accomplishes  he  returns  thanks  to  God.  His  confidence 
in  the  presence  of  spirits  and  angels,  as  well  as  in  the  Provi- 
dence of  God,  was  remarkable,  and  sometimes  bordering  on 


SPIRITUAL  EXPERIENCES.  31 

credulity.  In  his  first  year  at  the  university  "  he  had  such  a 
wonderful  dream  that  he  did  not  know  whether  he  ought  not 
to  call  it  a  revelation.  '  No  human  tongue  can  pronounce, 
and  no  angel  can  describe,  what  I  then  saw  and  heard.' " 
When  he  first  began  to  preach,  he  and  all  in  the  village  heard 
in  the  church  towards  evening  loud  voices,  singing  hymns.1 
From  that  time  he  felt  profound  veneration  for  holy  worship, 
convinced  that  "  God's  angels  are  especially  present  in  this 
sacred  office."  "God  preserved  me,"  he  says,  "during  the 
whole  of  my  student  life  from  bad  company.  My  company 
and  my  greatest  delight  were  God's  holy  men  who  wrote  the 
Bible,  and  the  many  other  men  who  have  made  themselves 
well-esteemed  in  God's  Church,  and  whose  names  are  far- 
spread  in  the  learned  world.  God's  angel  stood  by  me  and 
said,  '  What  do  you  read  ? '  I  answered,  '  I  read  the  Bible, 
Scriver,  Liitkeman,  John  Arndt,  Kortholt,  Grossgebaur,  J. 
Schmidt,  and  others/  The  angel  said  further,  '  Do  you  un- 
derstand what  you  read  in  the  Bible  ? '  I  answered, '  How  can 
I  understand,  when  there  is  no  one  to  explain  it  to  me?'2  The 
angel  then  said,  '  Procure  for  yourself  Geier,  J.  and  S.  Schmidt, 
Dieterich,  Tarnow,  Gerhardi,  and  Crell's  Biblical  Concord- 
ance? I  said,  '  A  part  of  these  books  I  have ;  the  rest  I 
will  provide  myself  with.'  The  angel  further  said,  '  Blessed 
is  he  that  readeth  and  they  that  hear  the  words  of  this  pro- 
phecy, and  keep  those  things  which  are  written  therein.  If 
ye  know  these  things,  happy  are  ye  if  ye  do  them.'  I  sobbed, 
'Oh,  grant  us,  God'" — a  stanza  of  a  Swedish  hymn.  "And 
thus  he  departed  from  me,  after  he  had  blessed  me  and  I 
had  thanked  him  most  humbly." 

It  is  of  great  interest  to  note  this  readiness  on  the  part  of 
Swedberg  to  receive  spiritual  instruction ;  and  this  very  vision, 
dream,  or  impression,  whichever  we  regard  it,  suggests  remark- 

1  Swedberg  was  fond  of  music.  "  By  the  whispering  of  the  leaves  in  the 
forest  and  the  noise  of  mill-wheels  in  the  brook,  he  was  reminded  of  the 
'  heavenly  music,'  the  fundamental  tone  of  which  he  found  struck  in  the  Book 
of  Revelation.  Every  evening,  usually,  his  good  friend  Dr.  Hesselius  came,  and 
played  hymns  to  him  on  his  violoncello."  2  Acts  viii.  30,  31. 


32  SWEDENBORG'S  PARENTAGE. 

ably  the  experience  that  was  to  come  to  his  son.  It  is  as  if 
heaven  were  teeming  with  the  instruction  the  Lord  was  about 
to  give  to  men,  and  angels  were  seeking  the  mind  fitted  to 
receive  it :  nay,  more,  as  if  Swedberg  himself  had  some  of 
the  elements  of  preparation.  And  what  did  he  lack  ?  Much, 
we  shall  find  when  we  bring  into  comparison  the  breadth  and 
depth  of  intellectual  grasp  that  was  given  to  his  son.  Much, 
very  much,  we  shall  see  when  we  set  beside  his  self-complacent, 
impulsive  spirit  the  self-abnegated,  divine  spirit  that  shone 
through  his  son  after  his  vastation,  in  the  period  of  his  illumi- 
nation. We  need  not  inquire  why  this  change  of  spirit  might 
not  have  been  granted  to  the  father.  Enough,  that  the  time 
was  not  yet  fully  come.  It  is  easy  to  recognize  in  Bishop 
Swedberg  a  large  measure  of  the  simple  Christian  goodness, — 
love  for  the  Lord  and  for  doing  good  works  to  the  neighbor, — 
which  was  taught  by  John  the  Baptist,  and  again  was  typified 
by  John  the  Evangelist,  and  was  to  remain  on  earth  to  receive 
the  Lord  at  His  Second  Coming.  But  we  cannot  fail  to  see 
also  in  him,  and  strongly  marked,  the  fault  of  the  first  Christian 
Church  from  its  beginning, — the  desire  to  merit  a  high  place 
in  heaven  by  good  deeds.  Witness  what  his  biographer, 
himself  a  rejector  of  Swedenborg's  revelations,  calls  Swed- 
berg's  "sublime  words."  "At  least,"  said  he,  after  speaking 
of  his  persecutions  by  the  clergy,  "  I  know  that  my  angel  has 
received  a  command  from  God  to  have  in  readiness  a  crown, 
which  he  will  place  on  my  head  when  I  depart  hence  and 
enter  into  God's  kingdom.  Meanwhile  I  shall  sit  down  in 
my  honorable  place  with  greater  courage,  joy,  and  renown  if 
possible  than  before." 


CHAPTER   III. 

CHILDHOOD    AND    YOUTH. — STUDIES  ABROAD.  —  D^DALUS. 

SUCH  was  the  parentage  of  Emanuel  Swedenborg ;  but  in 
its  happiest  mood,  to  judge  from  the  name  his  father  gave 
him,  and  his  reasons  for  giving  it.  The  words  will  bear  to 
be  read  again  and  well  pondered.  "  The  name  of  my  son 
Emanuel  signifies  God-with-us ;  that  he  may  always  remem- 
ber God's  presence,  and  that  intimate,  holy,  and  mysterious 
conjunction  with  our  good  and  gracious  God  into  which  we 
are  brought  by  faith,  by  which  we  are  conjoined  with  Him  and 
are  in  Him.  And,  blessed  be  the  Lord's  name  !  God  has  to 
this  hour  been  with  him.  And  may  He  be  further  with  him, 
until  he  be  eternally  united  with  Him  in  His  kingdom  ! " 
God-given  wish  in  the  father's  heart,  that  was  to  be  fulfilled 
of  God  in  the  son  !  It  links  them  together ;  the  father 
shares  the  son's  labor  and  grace. 

In  what  ways  the  father's  heart  was  gladdened,  is  partly 
explained  in  the  following  reply  of  Swedenborg  to  his  friend 
Dr.  Beyer,  who  had  asked  him  for  some  particulars  of  his 
early  life  :  "  From  my  fourth  to  my  tenth  year  I  was  con- 
stantly engaged  in  thought  upon  God,  salvation,  and  the 
spiritual  experiences  of  men ;  and  several  times  I  revealed 
things  at  which  my  father  and  mother  wondered,  saying  that 
angels  must  be  speaking  through  me.  From  my  sixth  to  my 
twelfth  year  I  used  to  delight  in  conversing  with  clergymen 
about  faith,  saying  that  the  life  of  faith  is  love,  and  that  the 
love  which  imparts  life  is  love  to  the  neighbor  :  also  that  God 
gives  faith  to  every  one,  but  that  those  only  receive  it  who 
practise  that  love.  I  knew  of  no  other  faith  at  that  time  than 

3 


34  CHILDHOOD   AND   YOUTH. 

that  God  is  the  Creator  and  Preserver  of  nature,  that  He 
imparts  understanding  and  a  good  disposition  to  men,  and 
various  other  things  that  follow.  I  knew  nothing  then  of  that 
learned  faith  which  teaches  that  God  the  Father  imputes  the 
righteousness  of  His  Son  to  whomsoever  and  at  what  times 
He  chooses,  even  to  those  who  have  not  repented  and  have 
not  reformed  their  lives.  And  had  I  heard  of  such  a  faith, 
it  would  have  been  then,  as  it  is  now,  above  my  comprehen- 
sion." No  doubt  this  description  of  his  early  faith  mirrors, 
with  perhaps  an  added  light  of  its  own,  his  father's  teaching, 
and  shows  that  the  simple  apostolic  faith  manifested  in  a 
good  life  was  the  faith  the  good  Bishop  preached. 

Strangely  enough,  we  know  nothing  of  the  manner  of 
Emanuel's  early  education.  Born  in  the  city  of  Stockholm, 
Jan.  29,  1688,  taken  to  Vingaker  at  four  years  of  age,  and  the 
same  year  to  Upsal  on  his  father's  removal  thither,  he  must 
have  received  at  Upsal  all  his  schooling.  He  was  fifteen 
years  old  when  his  father  removed  to  Brunsbo ;  and  as  his 
sister  and  playmate  Anna,  sixteen  months  older,  was  married 
the  same  year  and  settled  at  Upsal,  we  may  conclude  that  it 
was  at  this  time  Emanuel  became  a  member  of  her  family ; 
for  he  must  now  have  well  entered  upon  his  academical  studies. 
In  1 709  he  received  his  degree  of  doctor  of  philosophy,  and 
with  the  consent  of  the  Faculty  he  prints,  with  an  affec- 
tionate dedication  to  his  father,  his  academical  thesis  just 
read  in  the  university  hall  at  Upsal.  In  this  thesis  we  find 
little  attempt  at  display.  It  was  a  solid  collection  of  selected 
sentences  from  Latin  and  Greek  authors,  mostly  from  Seneca, 
with  some  from  Holy  Writ,  arranged  to  set  forth  certain 
moral  and  religious  sentiments,  and  accompanied  with  ap- 
posite reflections.  So  far,  we  should  say,  the  religious  bent 
of  the  child  still  rules  the  young  man. 

The  same  year,  the  Bishop  published  a  Swedish  poetical 
paraphrase  of  the  twelfth  chapter  of  Ecclesiastes,  with  com- 
ments, and  with  the  same  rendered  into  Latin  verse  by  his 
son  Emanuel.  This  taste  and  facility  for  Latin  verse,  proba- 


GRADUATION.  35 

bly  acquired  at  the  university,  is  not  left  behind  with  the 
college  halls,  but  becomes  the  young  man's  recreation  in  the 
interval  of  severer  studies  for  some  years  after  graduation. 

When  his  course  was  finished  at  the  university,  he  appears 
to  have  gone  to  his  father's  home  at  Brunsbo.  But  in  July  he 
wrote,  asking  the  aid  of  Benzelius  to  start  him  on  his  travels, 
then  an  essential  part  of  a  young  man's  education.  He  asked, 
in  particular,  letters  to  some  one  in  an  English  college,  in 
order  that  he  might  improve  himself  in  mathematics,  or  in 
physics  and  natural  history.  "As  I  have  always  desired,"  he 
said,  "to  turn  to  some  practical  use,  and  also  to  perfect  my- 
self more  in,  the  studies  which  I  selected  with  your  advice  and 
approval,  I  thought  it  advisable  to  choose  a  subject  early 
which  I  might  elaborate  in  course  of  time,  and  into  which  I 
might  introduce  much  of  what  I  should  notice  and  read  in 
foreign  countries.  This  course  I  have  always  pursued  hitherto 
in  my  reading ;  and  now,  at  my  departure,  I  propose  to  my- 
self, as  far  as  concerns  mathematics,  gradually  to  gather  and 
work  up  a  certain  collection,  namely,  of  things  discovered  and 
to  be  discovered  in  mathematics, —  or,  what  is  nearly  the  same 
thing,  the  progress  made  in  mathematics  during  the  last  one 
or  two  centuries."  "Much  kind  love  "  he  sends  to  his  sister 
Anna. 

Never  idle,  he  adds  by  the  bye  that,  since  leaving  Upsal, 
he  has  acquired  the  manual  art  of  bookbinding.  In  March 
of  the  next  year,  his  travels  having  been  delayed,  he  writes 
that  he  has  made  such  progress  in  music  as  occasionally  to 
take  the  organist's  place  at  church. 

In  1710,  the  necessary  royal  permission  having  been  ob- 
tained by  the  solicitation  of  his  father,  Emanuel  at  last  set 
out  on  his  travels  in  pursuit  of  his  education,  though  not 
without  further  hindrance  on  the  way.  We  find  in  his 
Itinerary, — 

"  I  travelled  to  Gottenburg,  and  thence  by  ship  to  London. 
On  the  way  to  London  I  was  four  times  in  danger  of  my  life. 
First,  from  a  sand-bank  on  the  English  coast  in  a  dense  fog, 


36  STUDIES  ABROAD. 

when  all  considered  themselves  lost,  the  keel  of  the  vessel 
being  within  a  quarter  of  a  fathom  of  the  bank.  Second,  from 
the  crew  of  a  privateer,  who  came  on  board  declaring  them- 
selves to  be  French,  while  we  thought  they  were  Danes. 
Third,  from  an  English  guardship  on  the  following  evening, 
which  on  the  strength  of  a  report  mistook  us  in  the  darkness 
for  the  privateer,  and  fired  a  whole  broadside  into  us,  but 
without  doing  us  any  serious  damage.  Fourth,  in  London 
I  was  soon  after  exposed  to  a  still  greater  danger ;  for  some 
Swedes,  who  had  approached  our  ship  in  a  yacht,  persuaded 
me  to  sail  with  them  to  town,  when  all  on  board  had  been  or- 
dered to  remain  there  for  six  weeks,  the  news  having  already 
spread  that  the  plague  had  broken  out  in  Sweden.  As  I  did 
not  observe  the  quarantine,  an  inquiry  was  made ;  yet  I  was 
saved  from  the  halter, — with  the  declaration,  however,  that 
no  one  who  ventured  to  do  this  in  future  would  escape  his 
doom." 

In  October,  1710,  he  writes  to  Benzelius, — 
"This  island  has  also  men  of  the  greatest  experience  in 
this  [mathematical]  science ;  but  these  I  have  not  yet  con- 
sulted, because  I  am  not  yet  sufficiently  acquainted  with  their 
language.  I  study  Newton  daily,  and  I  am  very  anxious  to 
see  and  hear  him.  I  have  provided  myself  with  a  small  stock 
of  books  for  the  study  of  mathematics,  and  also  with  a  certain 
number  of  instruments.  .  .  .  The  magnificent  St.  Paul's 
Cathedral  was  finished  a  few  days  ago  in  all  its  parts.  .  .  . 
The  town  is  distracted  by  internal  dissensions  between  the 
Anglican  and  Presbyterian  churches  ;  they  are  incensed  against 
each  other  with  almost  deadly  hatred.  .  .  .  Were  you,  dear 
brother,  to  ask  me  about  myself,  I  should  say  I  know  that  I 
am  alive,  but  not  happy ;  for  I  miss  you  and  my  home.  .  .  . 
I  not  only  love  you  more  than  my  own  brothers,  but  I  even 
love  and  revere  you  as  a  father.  .  .  .  May  God  preserve 
you  alive,  that  I  may  meet  you  again  !  " 

It  was  in  the  middle  of  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne.     Han- 
del arrived  from  Italy  the  same  year,  to  find  an  atmosphere 


IN   LONDON.  37 

in  which  his  oratorio  of  the  Messiah  could  be  conceived  and 
born  into  the  world.  Pope,  a  few  months  younger  than  Swe- 
denborg,  was  just  issuing  his  Essay  on  Criticism.  Addison 
and  Steele  were  publishing  the  Tatler,  soon  to  be  followed  by 
the  Spectator.  Dr.  Isaac  Watts  was  preaching  kindly  sermons 
in  Mark  Lane ;  and  Sir  Christopher  Wren  was  putting  the 
finishing  touches  to  the  Cathedral  of  St.  Paul. 

In  April,  1711,  Swedenborg  writes  from  London,  delighted 
to  execute  the  commission  of  Benzelius  for  the  purchase  of 
a  telescope  twenty-four  feet  in  length,  a  microscope,  and  sun- 
dry books.  "I  visit  daily,"  he  says,  "the  best  mathematicians 
here  in  town.  I  have  been  with  Flamsteed,  who  is  considered 
the  best  astronomer  in  England,  and  who  is  constantly  taking 
observations,  which,  together  with  the  Paris  observations,  will 
give  us  some  day  a  correct  theory  respecting  the  motion  of 
the  moon  and  of  its  appulse  to  the  fixed  stars.  .  .  .  Newton 
has  laid  a  good  foundation  for  correcting  the  irregularities  of 
the  moon,  in  his  Principia.  .  .  .  You  encourage  me  to  go 
on  with  my  studies  ;  but  I  think  that  I  ought  rather  to  be  dis- 
couraged, as  I  have  such  an  ' immoderate  desire'1  for  them, 
especially  for  astronomy  and  mechanics.  I  also  turn  my 
lodgings  to  some  use,  and  change  them  often.  At  first  I  was 
at  a  watchmaker's,  afterwards  at  a  cabinetmaker's,  and  now 
I  am  at  a  mathematical-instrument  maker's.  From  them  I 
steal  their  trades,  which  some  day  will  be  of  use  to  me.  I 
have  recently  computed  for  my  own  pleasure  several  useful 
tables  for  the  latitude  of  Upsal,  and  all  the  solar  and  lunar 
eclipses  which  will  take  place  between  1712  and  1721.  .  .  . 
In  undertaking  in  astronomy  to  facilitate  the  calculation  of 
eclipses,  and  of  the  motion  of  the  moon  outside  that  of  the 
syzygies,  and  also  in  undertaking  to  correct  the  tables  so  as  to 
agree  with  the  new  observations,  I  shall  have  enough  to  do. 
.  .  .  Grabe's  Septuagint  was  recently  published.  ...  He 
was  here  for  some  time,  but  he  had  to  change  his  lodgings 
every  week;  he  was  so  over-run  by  visitors.  ...  I  have 
1  He  uses  these  English  words. 


38  STUDIES  ABROAD. 

much  to  tell  about  events  among  the  learned,  but  I  have 
neither  time  nor  paper." 

A  long  letter  in  January,  1712,  answers  various  questions 
on  scientific  matters,  received  from  Benzelius  and  the  Literary 
Society  of  Upsal.  Among  other  things  he  wanted  to  send 
home  some  English  globes ;  but  mounted,  they  were  very  dear, 
as  well  as  expensive  to  transport,  and  he  had  tried  to  procure 
the  paper  sheets  to  be  set  up  at  home.  These  the  makers 
would  not  sell,  lest  they  should  be  copied.  Characteristically, 
Swedenborg  sets  to  work  learning  to  engrave  on  copper,  and 
then  draws  and  engraves  the  plates  for  a  pair  of  globes  of 
ordinary  size.  He  sends  at  this  time  a  specimen  of  his  engrav- 
ing, and  remarks  that  he  has  learned  so  much  from  his  land- 
lord in  the  art  of  making  brass  instruments,  that  he  has  already 
made  several  for  his  own  use,  and  that  if  he  were  in  Sweden 
he  would  not  need  to  apply  to  any  one  to  make  the  meridians 
for  the  globe  and  its  other  appurtenances.  Of  his  studies  he 
says,— 

"  With  regard  to  astronomy  I  have  made  such  progress 
in  it  as  to  have  discovered  much  which  I  think  will  be  useful 
in  its  study.  Although  in  the  beginning  it  made  my  brain 
ache,  yet  long  speculations  are  now  no  longer  difficult  for  me. 
I  examined  closely  all  propositions  for  finding  the  terrestrial 
longitude,  but  could  not  find  a  single  one ;  I  have  therefore 
originated  a  method  by  means  of  the  moon,  which  is  unerr- 
ing, and  I  am  certain  that  it  is  the  best  which  has  yet  been 
advanced.  In  a  short  time  I  will  inform  the  Royal  Society 
that  I  have  a  proposition  to  make  on  this  subject,  stating  my 
points.  If  it  is  favorably  received  by  these  gentlemen,  I  shall 
publish  it  here ;  if  not,  in  France.  I  have  also  discovered 
many  new  methods  for  observing  the  planets,  the  moon,  and 
the  stars ;  that  which  concerns  the  moon  and  its  parallaxes, 
diameter,  and  inequality,  I  will  publish  whenever  an  oppor- 
tunity arises.  I  am  now  busy  working  my  way  through  algebra 
and  the  higher  geometry,  and  I  intend  to  make  such  progress 
in  it  as  to  be  able,  in  time,  to  continue  Polhammar's  discov- 


LONGITUDE. 


39 


eries.  .  .  .  When  the  plates  for  the  globes  arrive  in  Sweden, 
Professor  Elfvius  will  perhaps  take  care  to  have  them  printed 
and  made  up.  I  shall  send  a  specimen  very  soon ;  but  no 
impression  is  to  be  sold."  In  this  same  letter  he  mentions 
valuable  English  books,  and  names  all  the  principal  poets  as 
well  worth  reading  for  the  sake  of  their  imagination  alone. 
In  mild  terms  he  complains  of  his  father's  not  supplying 
him  better  with  money;  and  we  find  the  complaint  quite 
pardonable  when  we  remember  that  the  father  was  borrow- 
ing his  children's  inheritance  from  their  mother  for  his  own 
enterprises,  and  when  we  learn  that  Emanuel  had  received 
from  him  but  two  hundred  rixdalers  (about  two  hundred,  and 
twenty-five  dollars)  in  sixteen  months.  He  says  it  is  hard  to 
live  without  food  or  drink. 

Writing  again  to  Benzelius,  August,  1712,  he  repeats  his 
confidence  in  his  new  method  of  finding  the  longitude,  which 
Dr.  Halley  admitted  to  him  orally  was  the  only  good  method 
that  had  been  proposed.  "But,"  he  adds,  "as  I  have  not 
met  with  great  encouragement  here  in  England,  among  this 
civil  and  proud  people,  I  have  laid  it  aside  for  some  other 
place.  When  I  tell  them  that  I  have  some  project  about  lon- 
gitude, they  treat  it  as  an  impossibility ;  and  so  I  do  not  wish 
to  discuss  it  here.  ...  As  my  speculations  made  me  for  a 
time  not  so  sociable  as  is  serviceable  and  useful  for  me,  and 
as  my  spirits  are  somewhat  exhausted,  I  have  taken  refuge  for 
a  short  time  in  the  study  of  poetry,  that  I  might  be  somewhat 
recreated  by  it.  I  intend  to  gain  a  little  reputation  by  this 
study,  on  some  occasion  or  other,  during  this  year,  and  I  hope 
I  may  have  advanced  in  it  as  much  as  may  be  expected  from 
me, —  but  time  and  others  will  perhaps  judge  of  this.  Still, 
after  a  time,  I  intend  to  take  up  mathematics  again,  although 
at  present  I  am  doing  nothing  in  them ;  and  if  I  am  encour- 
aged, I  intend  to  make  more  discoveries  in  them  than  any  one 
else  in  the  present  age.  But  without  encouragement  this  would 
be  sheer  trouble,  and  it  would  be  like  non  profecturis  litora 
bubus  arare,  —  ploughing  the  ground  with  stubborn  steers. 


40  STUDIES   ABROAD. 

,  .  .  Within  three  or  four  months  I  hope,  with  God's  help, 
to  be  in  France ;  for  I  greatly  desire  to  understand  its  fash- 
ionable and  useful  language.  I  hope  by  that  time  to  have,  or 
to  find  there,  letters  from  you  to  some  of  your  learned  cor- 
respondents. .  .  .  Your  great  kindness  and  your  favor,  of 
which  I  have  had  so  many  proofs,  make  me  believe  that  your 
advice  and  your  letters  will  induce  my  father  to  be  so  favor- 
able towards  me  as  to  send  me  the  funds  which  are  necessary 
for  a  young  man,  and  which  will  infuse  into  me  new  spirit  for 
the  prosecution  of  my  studies.  Believe  me,  I  desire  and 
strive  to  be  an  honor  to  my  father's  house  and  yours,  much 
more  strongly  than  you  yourself  can  wish  and  endeavor.  .  .  . 
I  would  have  bought  the  microscope,  if  the  price  had  not  been 
so  much  higher  than  I  could  venture  to  pay  before  receiving 
your  orders.  This  microscope  was  one  which  Mr.  Marshall 
showed  to  me  especially ;  it  is  quite  new,  of  his  own  inven- 
tion, and  shows  the  motion  in  fishes  very  vividly.  There 
was  a  glass  with  a  candle  placed  under  it,  which  made  the 
thing  itself,  and  the  object,  much  brighter;  so  that  any 
one  could  see  the  blood  in  the  fishes  flowing  swiftly,  like 
small  rivulets  ;  for  it  flowed  in  that  way,  and  as  rapidly.  At 
a  watchmaker's  I  saw  a  curiosity  which  I  cannot  forbear 
mentioning.  It  was  a  clock  which  was  still,  without  any  mo- 
tion. On  the  top  of  it  was  a  candle,  and  when  this  was  lighted, 
the  clock  began  to  go  and  to  keep  its  true  time  ;  but  as  soon 
as  the  candle  was  blown  out,  the  motion  ceased,  and  so  on. . . . 
He  told  me  that  nobody  had  as  yet  found  out  how  it  could 
be  set  in  motion  by  the  candle.  Please  remember  me  kindly 
to  sister  Anna,  my  dear  sister  Hedvig,  and  also  to  brother 
Ericus  Benzel,  the  little  one,  about  whose  state  of  health  I 
always  desire  to  hear." 

The  next  letter  that  has  come  down  to  us  was  dated  Paris, 
August,  1713.  Meanwhile  Swedenborg  had  left  London  and 
made  a  considerable  stay  in  Holland.  "I  left  Holland," 
he  says,  "  intending  to  make  greater  progress  in  mathematics, 
and  also  to  finish  all  I  had  designed  in  that  science.  Since 


IN   PARIS.  41 

my  arrival  here  I  have  been  hindered  in  my  work  by  an  illness 
which  lasted  six  weeks,  and  which  interfered  with  my  studies 
and  other  useful  employments ;  but  I  have  at  last  recovered, 
and  am  beginning  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  the  most 
learned  men  in  this  place.  I  have  called  upon,  and  made  the 
acquaintance  of,  De  La  Hire,  who  is  now  a  great  astronomer, 
and  who  was  formerly  a  well-known  geometrician.  I  have 
also  been  frequently  with  Warrignon,  who  is  the  greatest 
geometrician  and  algebraist  in  this  city,  and  perhaps  the 
greatest  in  Europe.  About  eight  days  ago  I  called  upon 
Abbe  Bignon,  and  presented  your  compliments,  on  the 
strength  of  which  I  was  very  favorably  received  by  him.  I 
submitted  to  him  for  examination,  and  for  introduction  into 
the  Society,  three  discoveries,  two  of  which  were  in  algebra. 
[The  third  was  his  new  method  of  finding  longitude.]  .  .  . 
Here  in  town  I  avoid  conversation  with  Swedes,  and  shun  all 
those  by  whom  I  might  be  in  the  least  interrupted  in  my 
studies.  What  I  hear  from  the  learned,  I  note  down  at  once 
in  my  journal ;  it  would  be  too  long  to  copy  it  out  and  to 
communicate  it  to  you.  .  .  .  During  my  stay  in  Holland  I  was 
most  of  the  time  in  Utrecht,  where  the  Diet  [Congress1]  met, 
and  where  I  was  in  great  favor  with  Ambassador  Palmquist, 
who  had  me  every  day  at  his  house ;  every  day  also  I  had 
discussions  on  algebra  with  him.  He  is  a  good  mathema- 
tician and  a  great  algebraist.  ...  In  Leyden  I  learned  glass- 
grinding  [for  telescopes],  and  I  have  now  all  the  instruments 
and  utensils  belonging  to  it.  ...  You  may  rest  assured  that 
I  entertain  the  greatest  friendship  and  veneration  for  you  ;  I 
hope,  therefore,  that  you  will  not  be  displeased  with  me  on 
account  of  my  silence,  and  my  delay  in  writing  letters,  if  you 
hear  that  I  am  always  intent  on  my  studies,  so  that  sometimes 
I  omit  more  important  matters." 

Swedenborg's  stay  in  Paris  seems  to  have  been  less  than  a 
year,  and  here  seems  to  end  his  aspiration  for  eminence  in 

1  The  famous  Congress  of  Ambassadors,  by  which  the  Spanish  Succession 
was  ended  and  peace  secured  for  a  generation. 


42  STUDIES  ABROAD. 

pure  mathematics.  Perhaps  he  did  not  find  in  them  the  en- 
couragement he  hoped.  For  whatever  reason,  from  this  time 
he  began  to  devote  his  attention  to  mechanical  and  practical 
investigations.  Going  from  Paris  by  way  of  Hamburg  to 
Rostock,  in  the  north  of  Mecklenburg,  he  writes  from  there 
to  Benzelius,  Sept.  8,  1714, — 

"  I  am  very  glad  that  I  have  come  to  a  place  where  I  have 
time  and  leisure  to  gather  up  all  my  works  and  thoughts,  which 
have  hitherto  been  without  any  order,  and  are  scattered  here 
and  there  upon  scraps  of  paper.  I  have  always  been  in  want 
of  a  place  and  time  to  collect  them.  I  have  now  commenced 
this  labor,  and  shall  soon  get  it  done.  I  promised  my  dear 
father  to  publish  an  academical  thesis,  for  which  I  shall  select 
some  inventions  in  mechanics  which  I  have  at  hand.  Fur- 
ther, I  have  the  following  mechanical  inventions  either  in 
hand  or  fully  written  out,  namely, — 

"  i.  The  plan  of  a  certain  ship,  which,  with  its  men,  can 
go  under  the  surface  of  the  sea,  wherever  it  chooses,  and 
do  great  damage  to  the  fleet  of  the  enemy. 

"2.  A  new  plan  for  a  siphon,  by  which  a  large  quantity 
of  water  may  be  raised  from  any  river  to  a  higher  locality  in 
a  short  time. 

"3.  For  lifting  weights  by  the  aid  of  water  and  this  port- 
able siphon,  with  greater  facility  than  by  mechanical  powers. 

"  4.  For  constructing  sluices  in  places  where  there  is  no  fall 
of  water,  by  means  of  which  entire  ships,  with  their  cargoes, 
may  be  raised  to  any  required  height  within  an  hour  or  two. 

"  5.  A  machine  driven  by  fire,  for  throwing  out  water ;  and 
a  method  of  constructing  it  near  forges,  where  the  water  has 
no  fall,  but  is  tranquil. 

"  6.  A  draw-bridge,  which  may  be  closed  and  opened  within 
the  gates  and  walls. 

"  7.  New  machines  for  condensing  and  exhausting  air  by 
means  of  water.  Also  a  new  pump  acting  by  water  and  mer- 
cury, without  any  siphon ;  which  presents  more  advantages 
and  works  more  easily  than  the  common  pumps.  I  have  also, 
besides  these,  other  new  plans  for  pumps. 


INVENTIONS. 


43 


"  8.  A  new  construction  of  air-guns,  thousands  of  which 
may  be  discharged  in  a  moment  by  means  of  one  siphon. 

"9.  A  universal  musical  instrument,  by  means  of  which  one 
who  is  quite  unacquainted  with  music  may  execute  all  kinds 
of  airs  that  are  marked  on  paper  by  notes. 

"10.  Sciagraphia  universalis.  The  universal  art  of  de- 
lineating shades,  or  a  mechanical  method  of  delineating  en- 
gravings of  any  kind,  upon  any  surface,  by  means  of  fire. 

"  ii.  A  water-clock,  in  which  water  serves  the  purpose  of 
an  index,  and  in  which,  by  the  flow  of  water,  all  the  movable 
bodies  in  the  heavens  are  demonstrated,  with  other  curious 
effects. 

"12.  A  mechanical  carriage  containing  all  sorts  of  works, 
which  are  set  in  motion  by  the  movement  of  the  horses. 
Also  a  flying  carriage,  or  the  possibility  of  remaining  sus- 
pended in  the  air,  and  of  being  conveyed  through  it. 

"13.  A  method  of  ascertaining  the  desires  and  the  affec- 
tions of  the  minds  of  men  by  analysis. 

"  14.  New  methods  of  constructing  cords  and  springs,  with 
their  properties. 

"These  are  my  mechanical  inventions  which  were  hereto- 
fore lying  scattered  on  pieces  of  paper,  but  nearly  all  of  which 
are  now  brought  into  order,  so  that,  when  opportunity  offers, 
they  may  be  published.  To  all  these  there  is  added  an  alge- 
braic and  a  numerical  calculation,  from  which  the  proportions, 
motion,  times,  and  all  the  properties  which  they  ought  to  pos- 
sess are  deduced.  Moreover,  all  those  things  which  I  have 
in  analysis  and  astronomy  require  each  its  own  place  and  its 
own  time.  Oh,  how  I  wish,  my  beloved  friend  and  brother, 
that  I  could  submit  all  these  to  your  own  eyes,  and  to  those 
of  Professor  Elfvius  !  But  as  I  cannot  show  you  the  actual 
machines,  I  will  at  least,  in  a  short  time,  forward  you  the 
drawings,  with  which  I  am  daily  occupied.  I  have  now  time 
also  to  bring  my  poetical  efforts  into  order.  They  are  only 
a  kind  of  fables,  like  those  of  Ovid,  under  cover  of  which 
those  events  are  treated  which  have  happened  in  Europe 


44  STUDIES  ABROAD. 

within  the  last  fourteen  or  fifteen  years ;  so  that  in  this  man- 
ner I  am  allowed  to  sport  with  serious  things,  and  to  play 
with  the  heroes  and  the  great  men  of  our  country.  But 
meanwhile  I  am  affected  with  a  certain  sense  of  shame,  when 
I  reflect  that  I  have  said  so  much  about  my  plans  and  ideas, 
and  have  not  yet  exhibited  anything:  my  journey  and  its 
inconveniences  have  been  the  cause  of  this.  I  have  now  a 
great  desire  to  return  home  to  Sweden,  and  to  take  in  hand  all 
Polhammar's  inventions,  make  drawings,  and  furnish  descrip- 
tions of  them ;  and  also  to  test  them  by  physics,  mechanics, 
hydrostatics,  and  hydraulics,  and  likewise  by  algebraic  calculus. 
I  should  prefer  to  publish  them  in  Sweden  rather  than  in  any 
other  place,  and  in  this  manner  to  make  a  beginning  among 
us  of  a  Society  for  Learning  and  Science,  for  which  we  have 
such  an  excellent  foundation  in  Polhammar's  inventions.  I 
wish  mine  could  serve  the  same  purpose.  ...  A  thousand  re- 
membrances to  my  sister  Anna.  I  hope  she  is  not  alarmed  at 
the  approach  of  the  Russians.1  I  have  a  great  longing  to  see 
little  brother  [nephew]  Eric  again ;  perhaps  he  will  be  able 
to  make  a  triangle,  or  to  draw  one  for  me,  when  I  give  him  a 
little  ruler." 

Our  next  date  is  at  Greifswalde,  in  Pomerania,  April,  1715, 
where  Swedenborg  spent  some  months  on  his  mathematical 
and  mechanical  studies,  "relieved  with  poetry;"  for  there 
he  printed  his  Latin  fables,  described  in  the  last  letter.  The 
long  dalliance  of  Charles  XII.  in  Turkey,  after  his  defeat  in 
the  heart  of  Russia,  had  come  to  an  end.  Disappointed  in 
his  hopes  of  the  Sultan's  assistance  against  Peter  the  Great, 
he  had  listened  to  the  prayers  of  his  subjects  for  his  return, — 
prayers  that  Swedenborg  expressed  in  Latin  verse  :  — 

"  CAROLE  !  spes  Svionum  !  Te  Musae  et  Sceptra  reposcunt, 
Hac  resonant  arae,  pulpita,  templa  prece."  2 

From  an  English  paraphrase  of  this  ode,  which  we  find  in 

1  Who,  in  Charles's  absence,  were  advancing  to  join  the  Danes  and  to  recover 
lost  ground. 

2  Carmina  Miscellanea,  p.  5. 


RETURN   OF  CHARLES  XII. 


45 


Dr.  J.  J.  Garth  Wilkinson's  biography  of  Swedenborg,  credited 
to  Francis  Barham,  we  copy  the  concluding  lines  :  — 

"Ah,  soon  return, —  oh,  monarch  of  our  love  ! 
Oh,  Sun  of  Sweden,  waste  not  all  thy  light 
To  illume  the  crescent  of  the  Ottomans ! 
Thine  absence  we  bewail,  wandering  in  glooms 
Of  midnight  sorrow  —  save  that  these  bright  stars 
That  lead  us  on  to  victory,  still  console 
Thy  people's  hearts,  and  bid  them  not  despair." 

"Charles,"  says  Carlyle,  "ended  this  obstinate  torpor  at 
last;  broke  out  of  Turkish  Bender,  or  Demotica.  With  a 
groom  or  two,  through  desolate  steppes  and  mountain  wilder- 
nesses, through  crowded  dangerous  cities,  he  rode  without 
pause  forward,  ever  forward,  in  darkest  incognito,  the  inde- 
fatigable man;  and  finally  on  Old  Hallowmas  Eve  (1714), 
far  in  the  night,  a  horseman,  with  two  others  still  following  him, 
travel-splashed,  and  white  with  snow,  drew  bridle  at  the  gate 
of  Stralsund,  and  to  the  surprise  of  the  Swedish  sentinel  there 
demanded  instant  admission  to  the  Governor.  The  Gover- 
nor, at  first  a  little  surly  of  humor,  saw  gradually  how  it  was ; 
sprang  out  of  bed  and  embraced  the  knees  of  the  snowy  man. 
Stralsund  in  general  sprang  out  of  bed,  and  illuminated  itself, 
that  same  Hallow-Eve ;  and,  in  brief,  Charles  XII.,  after  five 
years  of  eclipse,  has  reappeared  upon  the  stage  of  things,  and 
menaces  the  world,  in  his  old  fashion,  from  that  city." 

From  the  neighborhood  of  Stralsund,  where,  soon  after, 
Charles  was  besieged  by  the  Russians  and  Danes,  Sweden- 
borg escaped  just  in  time,  and  through  the  midst  of  enemies 
arrived  home  in  safety  about  midsummer.  Welcomed  to 
Brunsbo,  his  father's  episcopal  seat,  the  Bishop  addresses  a 
petition  in  his  behalf  to  the  Lord- Lieutenant :  — 

"BRUNSBO,  i2th  July,  1715. 

"May  it  please  your  Excellency,  —  My  son  Emanuel,  after  five  years' 
foreign  travel,  has  at  length  returned  home.  I  hope  he  may  be  found 
available  for  some  Academy.  He  is  accomplished  in  Oriental  lan- 
guages, as  well  as  European,  but  especially  he  is  an  adept  in  poetry 


46  DAEDALUS. 

and  mathematics.  ...  If  there  should  be  an  opening  at  an  Academy 
here  in  Sweden,  will  your  Excellency  be  so  kind  as  advance  him  to  fill 
it  ?  With  God's  help  he  will  honor  his  place. 

"JESPER   SWEDBERG." 

Meanwhile  Swedenborg  made  preparations  for  his  projected 
magazine  of  scientific  discoveries  and  mechanical  inventions. 
On  the  pth  of  August  he  writes  to  Benzelius, — 

"  Most  honored  friend  and  brother,  —  As  I  presume  you 
have  now  returned  from  the  Springs  to  Upsal,  I  hope  that 
this  letter  may  find  you  in  good  condition  and  with  renewed 
health,  at  which  I  should  rejoice  more  than  any  one  else.  I 
received  lately  a  very  nice  little  Latin  letter  from  brother 
Ericulus,  at  which  I  was  very  much  pleased  and  gratified. 
I  answered  it  in  some  extemporaneous  Latin  verses,  in  which 
I  wished  him  every  kind  of  happiness  and  success,  both  in 
his  studies  and  in  everything  else  that  may  be  agreeable  to 
his  parents  and  to  himself. 

"  I  looked  very  carefully  for  the  machines  which  I  some 
time  ago  sent  to  my  father ;  they  were  eight  in  number,  but 
I  was  unable  to  discover  the  place  in'which  he  had  laid  them 
aside.  He  thinks  they  have  been  sent  to  you,  which  I  hope 
with  all  my  heart ;  for  it  cost  me  a  great  amount  of  work  to 
put  them  on  paper,  and  I  shall  not  have  any  time  during  the 
next  winter  to  do  this  over  again.  There  were,  First,  three 
drawings  and  plans  for  water-pumps,  by  which  a  large  quan- 
tity of  water  can  be  raised  in  a  short  time  from  any  sea  or 
lake  you  choose.  Second,  two  machines  for  raising  weights 
by  means  of  water,  as  easily  and  quickly  as  is  done  by  me- 
chanical forces.  Third,  some  kinds  of  sluices,  which  can  be 
constructed  where  there  is  no  fall  of  water,  and  which  will 
raise  boats  over  hills,  sand-banks,  etc.  Fourth,  a  machine  to 
discharge  by  air  ten  or  eleven  thousand  shots  per  hour.  All 
these  machines  are  carefully  described  and  calculated  alge- 
braically. I  had  further  intended  to  communicate  plans  of 
some  kinds  of  vessels  and  boats,  in  which  persons  may  go 
under  water  whenever  they  choose  ;  also  a  machine  for  build- 


PROJECTS.  47 

ing  at  pleasure  a  blast  furnace  near  any  still  water,  where  the 
wheel  will  nevertheless  revolve  by  means  of  the  fire,  which 
will  put  the  water  in  motion  ;  likewise  some  kinds  of  air-guns 
that  are  loaded  in  a  moment,  and  discharge  sixty  or  seventy 
shots  in  succession  without  any  fresh  charge.  Towards  win- 
ter, perhaps,  I  shall  draw  and  describe  these  machines.  I 
should  like  to  have  the  opportunity  and  the  means  of  setting 
one  or  other  of  them  up  and  getting  it  to  work. 

"  The  day  after  to-morrow  I  will  travel  to  the  Kinnekulle,1 
to  select  a  spot  for  a  small  observatory,  where  I  intend, 
towards  winter,  to  make  some  observations  respecting  our 
horizon,  and  to  lay  a  foundation  for  those  observations  by 
which  my  invention  on  the  longitude  of  places  may  be  con- 
firmed :  perhaps  I  may  then  travel  in  all  haste  first  to  Upsal, 
to  get  some  things  I  need  for  it. 

"  Please  let  me  know  whether  Professor  Upmark  has  yet 
obtained  his  appointment.  If  there  is  anything  in  which  I 
can  be  of  use  to  you  again,  I  wish  you  would  inform  me  of  it. 
Will  you  be  so  good  as  to  recommend  me  to  any  of  the  pro- 
fessors for  any  opening  that  may  present  itself?  The  rest  I 
shall  myself  see  to.  By  the  next  opportunity  I  will  send  you 
something  which  I  saw  through  the  press  before  returning 
home  :  it  is  an  oration  on  the  King's  return,  and  also  some 
fables  like  those  of  Ovid,  which  I  have  called  Camena  Borea, 
and  have  dedicated  to  Cronhjelm.  I  am  waiting  impatiently 
for  your  oration,  about  which  you  said  a  few  words  in  your 
last  letter.  Remember  me  a  thousand  times  to  Anna.  What- 
ever additional  success  I  may  have  in  my  designs,  I  will  first 
communicate  to  you.  I  wish  you  would  allow  me  to  do  so. 
Meanwhile  I  live  in  the  hope  of  being  allowed  to  remain,  most 
learned  friend  and  brother,  your  most  obedient  brother  and 

servant, 

"EMAN.  SWEDBERG." 

On  the  2ist  of  November,  he  writes  to  the  same  friend 
from  Stockholm, — 

1  A  fine  mountain  near  Lake  Wetter,  over  nine  hundred  feet  above  the  sea. 


48  HEDWIG   ELEONORA. 

"Most  honored  friend  and  brother,  — According  to  promise 
I  send  these  lines  in  the  greatest  haste  to  the  post-office, 
thanking  you  first  and  foremost  for  the  great  kindness  shown 
to  me  at  Upsal.  My  highest  wish  is  to  find  an  opportunity 
by  which  I  can  repay  it  in  some  way  or  other.  I  only  came 
here  to-day.  I  could  easily  have  arrived  yesterday,  had  it 
not  been  for  the  darkness,  and  for  the  uncertainty  of  finding 
quarters  for  one  in  a  blue  dress. 

"  The  Queen-dowager  is  still  living ;  she  is  better  to-day. 
.  .  .  We  have  heard  both  the  best  and  the  worst  news ;  only 
it  has  here  and  there  been  exaggerated  and  colored.  Most 
people  know  nothing  certain  about  the  King's  person.  Some 
shut  him  up  in  Stralsund,  and  give  him  no  means  of  escape ; 
others  vainly  rejoice  at  his  return,  and  expect  him  late  this 
evening  :  carriages  are  in  readiness  at  the  Court  to  go  to  meet 
him.  It  is  generally  believed,  however,  that  he  has  made  his 
escape ;  that,  after  his  horse  had  been  shot  under  him,  he 
ran  two  thousand  paces  on  foot  before  he  could  procure 
another  charger.  This  would  again  redound  to  his  glory,  as 
the  Dutch  say  that  the  Swede  would  be  the  best  soldier  in 
the  world,  if  he  knew  when  to  run  away. 

"  Brother  Gustav  sends  his  love,  and  apologizes  for  not 
having  written.  With  a  hundred  thousand  kind  remem- 
brances to  sister  Anna,  I  remain,  most  honored  brother,  your 
most  faithful  brother  and  friend, 

"EMAN.  SWEDBERG." 

The  Queen-dowager,  Hedwig  Eleonora,  died  three  days 
after  the  date  of  this  letter,  in  her  eightieth  year,  deeply  grieved 
at  the  unhappy  fate  of  her  Sweden,  and  in  great  anxiety  for 
her  grandson,  Charles  XII.  She  had  survived  both  her  son, 
Charles  XL,  who  died  in  1697,  and  his  Queen,  Ulrica  Eleo- 
nora, who  died  in  1 693.  Gustav  was  Benzelius's  brother. 

Early  in  December,  Emanuel  writes  again  to  his  friend 
and  brother,  from  Stockholm, — 

"  My  literary  occupations  engage  me  every  day.  .  .  .  With 


ESCAPE  OF  CHARLES  XII.  49 

regard  to  the  dedication  I  must  obey  you,1  .  .  .  although  I 
can  flatter  myself  with  only  a  small  prospect  of  recompense 
from  it.  ...  But,  my  dear  brother,  a  single  word  from  you 
to  my  father  about  me  will  be  worth  more  than  twenty  thou- 
sand remonstrances  from  me.  You  can  without  any  com- 
ment inform  him  of  my  enterprise,  of  my  zeal  in  my  studies  ; 
and  that  he  need  not  imagine  that  in  future  I  shall  waste  my 
time,  and,  at  the  same  time,  his  money.  ...  I  will  take  care 
of  the  shoes  for  brother  Eric,  and  we  will  also  take  care  of  the 
dress.  But  the  dyers  have  their  hands  full ;  the  shops  here 
are  all  changed  into  black  chambers,  to  make  the  goods 
appear  still  more  dreary,  and  everything  that  has  been  red  or 
gay  has  assumed  now  the  color  of  mourning.  This  is  the 
reason  why  my  sister's  dress  cannot  be  dyed  black.  .  .  . 

"  The  news  that  are  reported  here  arrived  from  Stralsund 
this  morning, — 

"  i.  That  the  royal  government  office,  with  all  its  employe's, 
has  embarked  for  Sweden.  There  was  probably  a  place  left 
in  the  vessel  for  the  King, 

"  2.  That  Stralsund  has  been  reduced  to  ashes,  and  has 
become  its  own  grave,  and  that  of  many  officers.  .  .  . 

"  Pardon,  my  dear  brother,  that  I  write  to  you  in  French. 
But  the  language  in  which  you  think  usually  suits  you  best. 
My  thoughts  at  present  move  in  this  language  ;  but  whenever 
Cicero  shall  again  engage  me,  I  shall  endeavor  to  address  you 
like  a  Ciceronian." 

The  mourning  in  Stockholm  was  for  the  Queen.  A  fort- 
night after  her  death,  Charles  XII.,  after  boldly  defending 
himself  in  Stralsund,  escaped  in  a  small  boat  on  the  town's 
surrender,  was  picked  up  by  a  Swedish  vessel,  and  landed  in 
Sweden  on  the  i3th  of  December. 

The  interest  that  Polhammar  took  in  young  Swedberg's 
projected  magazine  is  shown  in  the  following  notes  :  — 

1  Benzelius  desired  him  to  dedicate  his  new  magazine,  Dcedahis  Hyper- 
boreus,  to  Charles  XII.  The  D&dalus  was  a  quaint  little  pamphlet,  in  Swed- 
ish, square  in  form,  with  copper-plate  engravings  at  the  end. 

4 


(JO  D^DALUS. 

TO  EMANUEL  SWEDBERG. 

"STIERNSUND,  December  7,  1715. 

"Noble  and  most  learned  Sir:  Most  honored  friend, — With  peculiar  joy 
and  delight  I  have  heard  of  your  praiseworthy  intention  to  publish, 
under  your  own  care  and  at  your  own  expense,  the  interesting  and 
useful  information  in  physical  mathematics  and  mechanics  which  has 
been  collected  by  the  Collegium  curiosorum  at  Upsal,  and  by  your- 
self  

"  I  read  with  great  pleasure  the  description  of  the  ear-trumpet ;  and 
I  see  from  it  that  you  are  a  ready  mathematician,  and  well  qualified 
for  doing  this  and  similar  achievements.  .  .  . 
"  Your  most  obedient  servant, 

"  CHRISTOPH  POLHAMMAR." 

TO  ERICUS  BENZELIUS. 

"STIERNSUND,  December  10,  1715. 

"Most  worthy  and  most  learned  Librarian:  Most  respected  friend, — 
I  thank  you  most  humbly  for  your  kind  letter,  which  arrived  by  the 
last  post ;  it  was  the  more  welcome,  as  it  was  some  time  since  I 
had  the  pleasure  of  receiving  a  letter  from  you.  I  find  that  young 
Swedberg  is  a  ready  mathematician,  and  possesses  much  aptitude  for 
the  mechanical  sciences ;  and,  if  he  continues  as  he  has  begun,  he  will 
in  course  of  time  be  able  to  be  of  greater  use  to  the  King  and  to  his 
country  in  this  than  in  anything  else.  .  .  . 

"  If  I  can  be  of  use  in  any  way  to  Mr.  Swedberg,  I  will  be  so  with  the 
greater  pleasure,  because  I  may  thereby  do  some  good  and  acquire 
some  honor  for  our  country, — for  it  would  be  a  matter  of  rejoicing  if 
some  young  and  zealous  natures  could  be  found,  which  are  not  so 
much  engrossed  and  taken  up  with  the  present  condition  of  things,  as 
to  allow  themselves  to  be  withdrawn  thereby  from  interesting  and  at 
the  same  time  useful  designs  and  studies.  I  read  through  Mr.  Swed- 
berg's  first  draught  of  the  ear-trumpet;  but  I  did  so  while  engaged 
upon  and  hindered  by  other  matters,  so  that  I  had  not  time  to  ex- 
amine it  as  carefully  as  I  could  have  wished ;  but  I  have  no  doubt  it 
is  correct  in  all  its  parts.  It  would  be  my  greatest  delight  and  pleasure 
if  he  could  confer  with  me  personally  about  these  things ;  he  would 
be  always  welcome  at  my  house.  With  many  friendly  remembrances, 
most  worthy  Librarian,  I  am  your  most  obedient  servant, 

"CHRISTOPH  POLHAMMAR." 

TO   EMANUEL  SWEDBERG. 

"  STIERNSUND,  December  19,  1715. 

"Noble  and  most  learned  Sir:  Most  honored  friend,  —  The  copper- 
plate which  you  desire  is  entirely  at  your  service.  .  .  .  But  if  you 


PROFESSOR  OF   MECHANICS.  51 

wish  to  apply  yourself  diligently  to  the  study  of  mechanics,  I  should 
very  much  like,  if  you  are  willing,  that  you  would  put  up  with  my 
small  accommodation,  and  more  frequently  confer  orally  with  me; 
from  which,  I  have  no  doubt,  both  of  us  would  derive  satisfaction. 
For  although  I  am  well  aware  that  the  present  hard  times,  and  the 
few  days  I  have  still  to  live,  will  prevent  the  execution  of  my  designs, 
I  nevertheless  experience  both  pleasure  and  delight  in  discoursing 
upon  them  with  one  who  is  interested  in  them.  .  .  . 

"With  many  kind  remembrances  I  remain,  most  learned  Sir,  your 
most  obedient  servant, 

"CHRISTOPH  POLHAMMAR." 

By  the  next  February  Swedenborg  sends  to  Benzelius 
manuscript  for  the  second  part  of  the  magazine,  with  several 
drawings  of  which  he  wishes  that  engravings  may  be  made, 
hoping  that  the  printing  may  be  done  and  that  he  may  re- 
ceive a  few  copies  to  take  with  him  to  Court,  then  at  Ystad. 
Among  other  things  he  mentions  a  project  to  get  a  Faculty 
of  Mechanics  established  at  the  University.  The  same  idea 
is  elaborated  more  fully  in  another  letter,  of  March  4th,  with 
which  he  sends  for  the  printer  a  small  work  on  mathematics 
by  Polhammar.  It  appears  that  in  such  a  professorship 
he  would  have  found  at  this  time  all  he  desired.  More 
in  joke  than  in  earnest,  he  proposes  that  the  present  Faculty 
should  relinquish  one  seventh  of  their  salaries  for  the  new 
appointment.  Probably  his  serious  brother-in-law,  himself 
one  of  the  Faculty,  did  not  appreciate  the  joke ;  for  about 
the  2Oth  of  March  Swedenborg  writes  to  him, — 

"  I  was  very  glad  to  hear  your  opinion  and  ideas  upon  my 
proposition.  I  have  never  been,  and  I  never  will  be,  so  for- 
getful of  myself  and  of  my  standing  at  Upsal  as  to  expect 
that  the  professors  would  support  me  to  their  own  prejudice ; 
but  I  thought  that  by  such  a  desperate  and  execrable  propo- 
sition I  should  compel  your  prudence  and  your  imagination 
to  discover  something  better  for  me  ;  the  whole  of  it  was  con- 
ceived merely  as  a  joke,  and  this  can  very  easily  bq  mended 
en  disant  la  verite.  .  .  .  Still  it  would  be  very  desirable  that 
such  a  Faculty  should  be  established ;  and  if  it  is  not  practi- 


t;  2  DAEDALUS. 

cable  now,  and  we  have  to  wait,  it  could  be  done  with  the 
greatest  ease  by  dispensing  with  some  of  the  professorships 
which  are  least  necessary.  ...  But  as  it  would  probably 
take  from  six  to  ten  years  before  this  could  be  carried  out, 
it  would  be  well  if  meanwhile  some  other  arrangement  could 
be  made ;  and  this  your  prudence  will  be  best  able  to  find 
out." 

Benzelius,  on  the  2d  of  April,  announces  the  completion  of 
the  Dczdalus,  part  second,  and  adds, — 

"  With  regard  to  the  salary  of  a  Professor  of  Mechanics,  I 
know  nothing  better  than  that  Mr.  Polhammar  be  made  an 
ordinary  assessor  of  the  College  of  Commerce ;  that  you  be 
made  director  in  his  place  j  that  the  mechanical  laboratory  be 
removed  here  to  Upsal,  and  that  the  director's  rank  be  made 
the  same  as  that  of  the  professors.  The  rest  is  in  my  opinion 
a  mere  chimera.  For  the  ordinary  professor  of  geometry  is 
obliged  to  lecture  on  mechanics,  and  he  has  also  done  so. 
Further,  when  the  ordinary  professorships  were  appointed, 
a  fine  of  ten  thousand  dalers  in  silver  was  imposed  by  his 
Majesty  upon  any  one  who  desired  a  change." 

To  this  Swedenborg  answers  immediately  :  First,  that  no 
vacancy  exists  in  the  College  of  Commerce.  Second,  that  it 
might  happen,  with  such  a  change  in  the  directorship,  that 
Polhammar  would  resign  his  office ;  that  he  himself  cannot 
say  a  word  on  the  subject,  lest  it  seem  to  be  unfriendly ;  but 
if  by  any  means  the  assent  of  Polhammar  should  be  obtained, 
he  would  make  every  exertion  to  secure  the  position.  In  the 
same  letter  he  states  that  he  has  completed  the  manuscript 
for  the  next  number  of  the  Dadalus,  and  that  he  has  a  little 
poetical  work  in  the  press,  Ludus  Heliconius,  a  collection  of 
Latin  poems  written  in  various  places.  He  remains  at  Brunsbo 
till  some  opening  appears,  in  order  to  be  nearer  at  hand  to 
advocate  his  D&dalus  with  the  King. 

Every  letter  at  this  period  is  loaded  with  directions  about 
the  printing,  the  engraving,  etc.,  of  the  Dadalus.  Now  and 
then  occurs  a  mournful  remark  about  the  condition  of  the 


CONTENTS.  53 

country,  Charles  XII.  straining  every  nerve  and  exhausting 
the  life-blood  of  the  nation  for  his  ambitious  wars.  "It  seems 
to  me,"  he  writes,  "that  Sweden  is  now  prostrated,  and  that 
soon  she  will  be  in  her  last  agony,  when  she  will  probably  kick 
for  the  last  time.  Many  perhaps  wish  that  the  affliction  may 
be  short,  and  that  we  may  be  released." 

This  is  written  in  June,  1716.  The  letter  concludes: 
"Sister  Caisa  [Catherina]  has  increased  the  world  and  our 
family ;  she  has  had  a  little  daughter,  at  whose  baptism  I  was 
a  witness  the  day  before  yesterday.  A  thousand  kind  re- 
membrances to  sister  Anna  and  little  brother  Eric." 

Emanuel  Swedberg's  association  with  Polhammar  grew 
more  intimate,  with  his  publication  of  the  latter' s  inventions 
and  scientific  speculations,  together  with  his  own.  On  the 
26th  of  June,  1716,  he  writes  to  his  brother  Benzelius, — 

"  I  am  engaged  on  the  subject  which  I  intend  for  the  last 
number  of  this  year,  and  which  I  shall  finish  this  week,  namely, 
Polhammar's  ideas  upon  the  resistance  of  mediums,  which 
at  first  were  written  down  in  Latin,  and  which  have  cost  me 
a  great  deal  of  labor  and  mental  exertion  to  reduce  into  such 
a  form  as  will  please  the  Assessor  and  the  learned ;  likewise 
my  method  of  finding  the  longitude  of  places,  which  I  warrant 
to  be  certain  and  sure, — I  must  hear  what  the  learned  say 
about  it." 

On  the  4th  of  September  he  writes  again  to  the  same, — 

"  I  am  very  glad  that  Dcedalus,  part  iii.,  has  appeared.  I 
thank  you  for  having  taken  so  much  trouble  and  care  with  it : 
when  I  am  present  with  you,  I  will  thank  you  still  more.  I 
am  already  thinking  of  the  contents  of  part  v.  of  the  Dadalus. 
I  think  it  will  be  best  for  me,  first,  to  put  down  Assessor 
Polhammar's  ingenious  tap,  with  a  sufficient  mechanical  and 
algebraical  description ;  second,  to  make  an  addition  to  the 
description  of  his  '  Blankstotz '  machine,  as  this  is  a  work 
which  requires  greater  accuracy,  reflection,  and  considera- 
tion than  it  has  yet  received  ;  third,  to  leave  room  for  some 
of  the  eclipses  observed  by  Professor  Elfvius,  by  which  the 


54 


D^DALUS. 


longitude  of  Upsal  is  also  obtained.  If  you  would  honor  our 
little  work  with  a  life  of  Stiernhjelm,  or  with  something  else 
from  the  history  of  the  learned,  I  know  that  thereby  our  pub- 
lication would  become  more  interesting ;  as  in  this  case  the 
heavy  matter  would  be  relieved  by  more  pleasant  subjects.  I 
know  also  that  this  would  gain  us  the  favor  and  approbation 
of  many,  as  the  literary  world  acknowledges  you  as  by  far 
its  best  member ;  I  hope,  therefore,  that  this  honor  will  not 
be  refused.  May  God  grant  you  a  long  life,  although  I  am 
afraid  that  your  many  studies  will  deprive  us  of  this  benefit, 
by  shortening  your  days  :  for  I  know  no  one  who  has  more 
consideration  for  his  various  studies,  and  less  for  himself.  All 
the  learned  and  the  Muses  entreat  you  to  spare  yourself,  and 
in  you  the  Muses  :  it  is  worthy  of  all  praise,  indeed,  to  offer 
up  one's  self  to  the  Muses,  but  not  on  the  very  altar ;  it  is 
easy  enough  to  become  a  premature  victim.  Pardon  this 
admonition,  my  brother ;  your  letter  to  my  father  is  the  cause 
of  it.  I  hope  that  my  little  learning  and  my  D&dalus  will  be 
long  under  your  auspices.  I  think  of  inserting  in  the  fourth 
number  some  Daedalian  speculations  about  a  flying  machine, 
and  to  leave  room  for  Dr.  Bromell's  curiosities,  if  he  be 
pleased  to  insert  them.  Assessor  Polhammar  writes  that  in 
the  following  number  he  wishes  to  insert  such  matter  as  will 
be  of  use  to  the  public, — such  as  water  and  wind  machines, 
mills,  etc., — which  I  am  very  glad  of.  But  let  us  quit  these 
literary  topics.  Last  Thursday  night  his  Majesty  travelled 
incognito  through  Skara  and  Skarke  to  Hjo,  where  he  crossed 
over  Lake  Wetter  to  Wadstena,  to  call  on  the  Princess.  We  had 
the  lad  with  us  who  was  his  outrider,  and  who  accompanied 
him  from  the  monastery  to  Hjo.  He  reported  many  amus- 
ing questions  and  answers,  of  which  I  send  you  a  specimen. 
His  Majesty  asked,  'Whether  the  King  was  not  expected 
at  Hojentorp.'  'Yes,'  said  the  lad,  'I  think  so.'  'What 
should  he  do  there?'  'That  I  do  not  know,'  said  the  lad, 
'but  they  say  he  will  go  hence  to  Stockholm.'  He  then  said, 
smiling,  '  Psha  !  to  think  he  would  go  to  Stockholm ;  they 


LETTER  FROM  POLHEM.  55 

say  it  is  so  far  off.'  ...    A  hundred  thousand  kind  remem- 
brances to  sister  Anna  and  brother  Eric." 

In  point  of  fact,  Charles  XII.  never  went  to  Stockholm 
after  his  departure  in  1700,  not  choosing  to  show  himself 
again  in  his  capital  unless  as  a  victor.  In  the  same  month 
Polhem1  writes  to  his  young  friend  as  follows  : — 

"  Noble  and  most  respected  friend, —  With  great  pleasure  I  read 
through  the  fourth  number  of  your  Dcedalus,  which,  as  far  as  I  could 
see,  is  worked  up  with  great  industry  and  understanding.  With 
regard  to  the  article  on  '  Resistance,'  I  may  perhaps  mention  that 
it  seems  to  depend  rather  on  some  additional  deductions,  which 
might  follow  hereafter,  and  which  we  might  meanwhile  discuss 
orally,  than  to  need  any  changes  or  corrections  that  I  can  point 
out;  but,  if  I  may  be  allowed  to  express  candidly  my  opinion,  it 
seems  to  me  that  the  last  correction  was  somewhat  unnecessary. 
With  respect  to  flying  by  artificial  means,  there  is  perhaps  the  same 
difficulty  contained  in  it  as  in  making  a  perpetual  motion,  or  gold  by 
artificial  means ,  although  at  first  sight  it  seems  as  easy  to  be  done 
as  it  is  desirable ;  for  whatever  any  one  approves  strongly,  he  has 
generally  a  proportionate  desire  to  carry  out.  In  examining  it  more 
closely,  some  difficulty  arises ;  for  nature,  as  in  the  present  case,  is 
opposed  to  all  common  machines'  preserving  their  same  relations 
when  constructed  on  a  large  as  on  a  small  scale,  though  all  parts  be 
made  exactly  alike  and  after  the  same  proportions.  For  instance, 
although  some  stick  or  pole  may  be  capable  of  bearing  itself  and  some 
weight  besides,  still  this  does  not  apply  to  all  sizes,  although  the  same 
proportion  may  be  preserved  between  the  length  and  thickness ;  for 
while  the  weight  increases  in  a  triple  ratio,  the  strength  increases  only 
in  a  double  ratio.  The  same  rule  applies  to  surfaces,  so  that  at  last 
large  bodies  are  incapable  of  sustaining  themselves ;  and  accordingly 
nature  itself  provides  birds  with  a  much  lighter  and  stronger  substance 
for  their  feathers,  and  also  quite  different  sinews  and  bones  in  the 
body  itself,  which  are  required  for  the  sake  of  strength  and  lightness, 
and  which  do  not  exist  in  any  other  organisms.  Wherefore  it  is  so 
much  more  difficult  to  have  any  success  in  the  air,  the  same  qualities 
being  required  in  this  case,  and  all  the  materials  being  wanted,  which 
are  necessary  when  a  human  body  is  to  be  carried  in  a  machine.  .  .  . 
Your  arrival  in  Stiernsund  will  be  most  agreeable  to  me ;  and  if  my 

1  About  this  time  Polhammar  was  ennobled  by  the  King  with  the  name  of 
Polhem,  by  which  we  shall  now  call  him.  But  for  a  time  Polhem  called  himself 
Pollheimer,  having  discovered  Polheim  to  be  the  ancestral  name. 


t;6  D^DALUS. 

experience  can  be  of  any  use  to  you,  I  will  give  it  with  so  much  the 
greater  pleasure  as  the  fruit  of  it  will  be  of  use  to  the  public  and  will 
accrue  to  my  own  honor.  After  you  enter  upon  physics,  it  might  be 
useful  to  follow  them  up  for  some  time  more  extensively,  especially 
those  which  concern  the  causes  of  natural  things ;  and  also  all  other 
things  necessary  and  curious,  especially  those  of  the  household,  etc. 
Immediately  after  I  sent  off  my  letter  to  you,  I  received  yours.  My 
wife  and  children  desire  to  be  remembered  to  you  most  kindly,  and 
they  also  thank  you  for  your  compliments. 

"  I  remain,  most  respected  Sir,  your  most  dutiful 

"CHRISTOPH  POLLHEIMER." 

The  last  sentence  of  this  letter  possesses  a  pathetic  interest 
in  view  of  later  developments.  In  another  letter,  of  the  same 
month,  Polhem  writes, — 

"  If  the  learned  wish  to  have  real  satisfaction  and  honor  from  that 
which  they  teach  others,  they  ought  to  have  a  better  understanding  of 
many  things  that  are  now  taught ;  for  nature  is  in  many  things  quite 
differently  constituted  than  is  thought  by  Descartes  and  almost  all  his 
followers.  And  this  can  scarcely  be  taught  better  than  by  daily  expe- 
rience in  mechanics  and  an  investigation  into  its  principles ;  and, 
although  what  I  have  gained  there  is  extremely  little  in  comparison 
with  what  still  remains  to  be  done,  I  nevertheless  hope  that  my  prin- 
ciples may  pave  the  way  for  the  rest.  For  I  never  approve  of  any- 
thing which  does  not  apply  to  all  cases  and  all  consequences  flowing 
from  it ;  and  whenever  there  is  one  single  thing  opposed  to  it,  I  hold 
its  fundamental  principle  to  be  false.  Moreover,  it  would  be  no  small 
honor  for  the  learned  mathematicians  if  they  could  point  out  what 
their  principal  and  most  intricate  figures  are  good  for  in  practice,  espe- 
cially the  geometric  curves,  etc.,  which  I  found  useful  in  mechanics  on 
more  occasions  than  I  expected  while  teaching  them  at  Upsal,  ignorant 
of  their  use." 

This  eagerness  to  develop  practical,  useful  results  from  their 
science,  it  is  pleasant  to  find,  was  a  marked  characteristic  of 
Polhem,  as  well  as  of  Swedenborg  himself.  A  gap  of  a  few 
months  in  the  correspondence  of  these  friends  indicates  a 
time  when  they  enjoyed  each  other's  company,  and  when  the 
elder  presented  young  Swedberg  and  his  Dadalus  to  Charles 
XII.,  at  once  the  most  sagacious,  the  most  bold,  and  the  most 
obstinate  of  men.  The  occasion  was  a  brief  lull  in  the  war- 
rior monarch's  stormy  career,  when,  after  reducing  his  coun- 


APPOINTED  ASSESSOR.  57 

try  to  an  extremity  of  wretchedness,  he  was,  Napoleon-like, 
devising  projects  of  improvement.  Polhem  became  now  his 
right-hand,  and  Swedenborg's  talents  were  quickly  apprecia- 
ted. In  a  letter  to  his  brother-in-law,  Benzelius,  December, 
1716,  he  says, — 

"  I  wrote  you  a  letter  from  Lund,  and  should  have  written 
to  you  more  frequently,  had  I  not  been  prevented  by  my 
mechanical  and  other  occupations ;  moreover,  I  had  enough 
to  attend  to  in  order  to  accomplish  my  design.  Since  his 
Majesty  graciously  looked  at  my  Dadalus  and  its  plan,  he  has 
advanced  me  to  the  post  of  an  Assessor  Extraordinary  in  the 
College  of  Mines,  yet  in  such  a  way  that  I  should  for  some 
time  attend  the  Councillor  of  Commerce,  Pollheimer  [Pol- 
hem)  .  What  pleases  me  most  is  that  his  Majesty  pronounced 
so  favorable  and  gracious  a  judgment  respecting  me,  and 
himself  defended  me  against  those  who  thought  the  worst  of 
that  he  h  -  mj.sed  1Tlfi  his  further  favor  and 

protection,—  of  this  I  have  been  assured  both  directly  and 
indin  ut  let  me  tell  you  all,  more  in  detail :  After  his 

Majestj  :.-.  <ired  as  to  my  character,  studies, 

and  the  like,  and  as  I  was  so  fortunate  as  to  have  good  refer- 
ences, he  offered  me  three  posts  and  offices  to  choose  from, 
and  afterwards  gave  me  the  warrant  for  the  rank  and  post 
of  an  Assessor  Extraordinary.  But  as  my  enemies  played 
too  many  intrigues  with  the  above-mentioned  warrant,  and 
couched  it  in  ambiguous  terms,  I  sent  it  back  to  his  Majesty 
with  some  comments,  well  knowing  whom  I  had  to  depend 
upon ;  when  there  was  immediately  granted  me  a  new  one, 
and  likewise  a  gracious  letter  to  the  College  of  Mines.  My 
opponent  had  to  sit  down  at  the  King's  own  table  and  write 
this  out  in  duplicate  in  two  forms,  of  which  the  King  selected 
the  best ;  so  that  those  who  had  sought  to  injure  me  were 
glad  to  escape  with  honor  and  reputation,  —  they  had  so 
nearly  burned  their  fingers. 

"Dadalus  has  enjoyed  the  favor  of  lying  these  three  weeks 
upon  his  Majesty's  table,  and  has  furnished  matter  for  many 


58  DAEDALUS. 

discussions  and  questions ;  it  has  also  been  shown  by  his 
Majesty  to  many  persons.  Within  a  short  time  I  intend  to 
send  you  what  is  to  follow  for  Dczdalus,  part  v. ;  when  per- 
haps Drs.  Roberg  and  Bromell  will  not  refuse  to  honor  it  with 
their  contributions ;  they  might  possibly  derive  some  profit 
from  it. 

"  We  arrived  here  at  Carlscrona  a  few  days  ago,  intending 
after  three  weeks  to  go  to  Gottenburg,  and  afterwards  to 
Trollhatta,  Lakes  Wener  and  Hjelmar,  and  Gullspangelf,  in 
order  to  examine  sites  for  sluices  and  locks,  —  a  plan  which 
meets  with  his  Majesty's  entire  approbation.  ...  A  thousand 
kind  remembrances  to  sister  Anna.  The  kid  gloves  have 
been  purchased." 

From  these  letters  of  what  we  may  still  call  Swedenborg's 
youth,  we  learn,  better  than  from  any  description,  its  exub- 
erance, its  energy,  its  assurance  of  mathematical  power,  its 

fertilitV  of  invention,  nnrl  its  qtrrmo-  rlp^ire  tr»  he  fmnlovpn  iv 

^iese 
traits  • 

flows--to  the  brothe; 

\OA  Budding  manhood,  and  were  still  to  him  a=>  father  aim 
mother.  The  traits  are  the  natural  ones  of  the  time  of  life. 
What  we  specially  observe  with  Swedenborg  is  their  vigor  and 
power,  eminent  by  inheritance,  and  conserved  in  remarkable 
degree  by  a  freedom  from  all  ignoble  passions  and  weak  in- 
dulgence, which  we  can  attribute  only  to  the  protection  that 
came  with  a  deep  sense  of  duty  to  God  and  to  man. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

ASSESSORSHIP.  —  EMPLOYMENT   BY   CHARLES   XII. 

THE  appointment  of  Swedenborg,  now  twenty-eight  years 
old,  to  an  assessorship  in  the  Royal  College  of  Mines,  marks 
an  era  in  his  life.  We  have  seen  him  a  child  at  home,  a  stu- 
dent at  the  university  and  among  learned  men  abroad,  and 
again  at  home  diligently  pursuing  his  studies,  but  eagerly 
seeking  opportunities  to  put  to  practical  service  the  talents  of 
which  he  was  conscious,  and  the  learning  he  had  so  laboriously 
acquired.  Now  his  opportunity  is  found,  and,  as  was  usual 
at  that  time,  by  the  recognition  and  favor  of  royalty :  — 

"CHARLES,  by  the  grace  of  God,  King  of  Sweden,  Gothia,  and 
Wendia,  etc.  Our  especial  favor  and  gracious  pleasure,  under  God 
Almighty,  to  the  true  men  and  servants,  to  our  Council  and  President, 
as  well  as  Vice-President,  and  to  all  the  Members  of  the  College  of 
Mines.  Inasmuch  as  we  have  graciously  deigned  to  command  that 
Emanuel  Swedberg  shall  be  Assessor  Extraordinary  in  the  College  of 
Mines,  although  he  at  the  same  time  is  to  attend  Pollheimer,  the  Coun- 
cillor of  Commerce,  and  to  be  of  assistance  to  him  in  his  engineering 
works,  and  in  carrying  out  his  designs,  —  therefore  it  is  our  pleasure 
hereby  to  let  you  know  this,  with  our  gracious  command,  and  that  you 
allow  him  a  seat  and  voice  in  the  College,  whenever  he  be  present,  and 
especially  whenever  any  business  be  brought  forward  pertaining  to 
mechanics.  We  hereby  commend  you,  especially  and  graciously,  to 
God  Almighty. 

"  CAROLUS. 

"Lund,  December  18,  1716." 

The  College  of  Mines  consisted  of  a  President,  always  of 
the  highest  order  of  nobility,  two  councillors  of  mines,  and 
some  six  assessors.  Under  its  charge  the  whole  mining  inter- 


60  ASSESSORSHIP. 

est  of  Sweden  was  placed.  From  its  records  it  appears  that, 
on  April  6,  1717,  Mr.  Emanuel  Swedberg,  appointed  by  his 
Majesty  to  be  Assessor  Extraordinary  in  the  College  of  Mines, 
being  present, — "  As  a  beginning  of  his  introduction,  the  royal 
decree  which  had  been  received  was  read.  Afterwards  the 
above-named  Assessor,  after  delivering  to  the  Royal  College 
the  formulary  of  the  oath  signed  by  himself,  took  the  oath  of 
loyalty  and  of  office,  »with  his  hand  upon  the  Book,  and  then 
took  the  seat  belonging  to  him." 

With  this  simple,  solemn  induction  into  his  office,  Sweden- 
borg  entered  upon  his  labors,  to  which  he  gave  strict  atten- 
tion, unremitted,  save  on  leave  of  his  sovereign  in  the  pursuit 
of  his  studies,  for  thirty  years ;  with  what  satisfaction  to  the 
College  and  to  the  Government  we  shall  learn,  when  we  find 
him  asking  permission  to  retire.  The  office  was  a  favorable 
one,  demanding  his  best  talent  and  energy,  yet  not  so  en- 
grossing as  to  prevent  his  pursuing  private  studies.  Except 
in  the  summer  months,  when  the  members  of  the  College 
usually  visited  the  mines,  daily  meetings  were  held  in  Stock- 
holm, at  which  Swedenborg  was  punctual  in  attendance,  when 
not  in  service  elsewhere.  For  a  while,  however,  by  the  com- 
mand of  Charles,  he  was  kept  away  in  assisting  Polhem. 
Nor,  by  the  King's  wish,  did  he  fail  to  continue  his  Dcedahts. 
On  the  23d  of  February,  1717,  he  writes  to  Benzelius, — 

"  Enclosed  I  send  Dcedalus,  part  v.,  and  I  most  humbly 
solicit  you  to  extend  to  it  the  kindness  that  you  have  shown 
towards  the  former  numbers.  I  should  have  finished  it  long 
ago,  but  I  have  been  continually  on  a  journey  of  ever  chang- 
ing direction,  which  scarcely  left  me  an  hour's  time  for  such 
work.  But  as  I  have  now  arrived  at  Stiernsund,  I  have 
found  an  opportunity,  for  a  few  days,  to  get  this  up  as  well  as 
I  can.  I  hope  it  will  win  the  approval  of  the  Upsal  people, 
and  especially  your  own. 

"  I  have  added  the  Latin  to  it  on  the  opposite  page, 
according  to  his  Majesty's  wish,  who  pointed  out  to  me 
where  the  Swedish  should  be  and  where  the  Latin.  , 


SALT-WORKS.  6 1 

"  With  regard  to  his  [Dr.  Roberg's]  project  for  manufac- 
turing salt,  his  Majesty  discussed  it  and  took  the  opposite 
side ;  proving  his  case  by  Hungarian  wine,  which  may  be 
entirely  frozen,  and  stating  that,  when  he  was  in  Poland,  a 
cask  of  Hungarian  wine  was  so  completely  frozen  that  he 
dealt  it  out  in  pieces  with  his  sword  to  the  men,  although 
there  remained  a  kernel  in  it,  of  the  very  essence  of  the  wine, 
as  large  as  a  musket- ball.  As  his  Majesty  seemed  to  be  in- 
terested in  the  manufacture  of  salt  in  Sweden,  we  gathered 
minute  information  about  it  in  Uddevalla ;  and  we  found  that 
in  Sweden  there  are  the  best  opportunities  for  its  manufac- 
ture, as  there  is  abundance  of  forest  and  water  for  promoting 
the  work.  .  .  .  Should  such  a  work  be  established,  it  would 
profit  the  country  more  than  the  whole  of  its  iron  manufacture, 
in  which  a  loss  is  occasionally  sustained ;  but  in  the  case  of 
salt  there  would  be  a  real  gain,  and  the  money  would  remain 
in  the  country. 

"  We  hope  that  our  journey  hither  will  in  time  be  of  im- 
portance. At  Trollhatta,  Gullspangelf,  and  Lake  Hjelmar 
also,  we  found  everything  feasible,  and  at  less  expense  than 
had  been  anticipated.  If  I  do  nothing  more  in  the  matter,  I 
act  at  least  as  a  stimulus  in  it. 

"Will  you  please  remember  me  kindly  to  little  brother 
Eric.  I  hear  that  his  love  for  mechanics  and  drawing  con- 
tinues. If  he  can  give  the  slip  to  his  preceptor,  I  should  like 
to  induce  him  to  follow  me ;  when  I  would  try  in  every  way 
to  promote  his  welfare,  to  instruct  him  in  mathematics  and 
other  things,  should  it  be  desired.  Please  remember  me  also 
a  hundred  times  to  sister  Anna." 

The  project  referred  to  in  this  and  a  preceding  letter,  for 
which  Swedenborg  and  Polhem  had  visited  Trollhatta,  was 
to  connect  the  North  and  the  Baltic  seas  by  a  canal,  thus 
saving  the  long  detour  about  the  southern  peninsula  and 
the  exposure  to  the  hostile  Danes,  at  Elsinore.  It  was  a 
project  of  Bishop  Brask  in  1526,  discovered  by  Benzelius, 
and  communicated  by  Swedenborg  to  Charles  XII.,  who 


62  EMPLOYMENT   BY  CHARLES  XII. 

embraced  it  eagerly,  but  was  prevented  by  death  from  its 
accomplishment.1 

Swedenborg  writes  on  March  24th  to  the  same  friend,  from 
Stockholm, — 

"  The  salt-boiling  and  inland  navigation  are  in  a  good  way ; 
I  think  that  they  will  obtain  the  King's  approbation.  I  am 
now  sending  down  to  Deputy-Councillor  Fahlstrom  the  pro- 
ject about  the  observatory  at  Upsal.  I  am  inclined  to  think 
that  his  Majesty  will  approve  of  it,  and  also  that  he  will  call 
upon  Upsal  to  hand  in  a  proposition  about  the  institution 
of  a  Faculty." 

Polhem  writes  acutely,  March  27th, — 

"Respected  Assessor,  —  I  avail  myself  of  the  present  occasion  to 
send  my  daughters  Maja  and  Mrensa  [Emerentia]  to  Stockholm, 
and  at  the  same  time  to  forward  you  the  first  draught  of  the  con- 
tinuation of  my  paper  on  physics,  which  I  have  not  taken  time  to  read 
over  since,  and  there  are  therefore  more  particulars  still  to  be  no- 
ticed. ...  It  is  very  appropriate  that  Stiernhjelm's  life,  his  intelli- 
gence and  learning,  should  be  described ;  and  it  would  do  no  harm 
if  some  verses  were  placed  over  it  in  honor  of  Sweden,  and  of  him 
about  whom  the  paper  is  written.  However  short  and  cold  the  days 
may  be  which  the  sun  grants  to  Sweden  in  winter,  so  much  the 
longer  and  warmer  are  they  in  summer ;  and  southerners  have  in  this 
respect  nothing  to  boast  of  over  us,  when  the  year  is  over.  In  like 
manner,  although  Sweden  produces  people  of  the  dullest  kind,  who 
are  ridiculed  by  other  nations,  there  are,  on  the  other  hand,  brought 
up  in  it  such  penetrating  and  lofty  minds  as  surpass  those  of  other 
countries,  and  are  able  to  teach  them ;  yet  when  you  take  the  aver- 
age of  the  two  extremes,  they  may  not  do  more  than  others." 

On  the  26th  of  June,  1717,  Swedenborg  writes  to  Ben- 
zelius, — 

"  Five  weeks  ago,  after  I  came  here  to  Lund,  I  presented 
to  his  Majesty  D&dalus,  part  v.,  and  he  was  pleased,  yea, 
more  than  pleased  with  it.  ...  The  salt-boiling  will  go  on, 
his  Majesty  having  resolved  to  grant  great  and  important  pri- 
vileges, which  will  perhaps  induce  many  zealous  persons  to 
venture  their  means  in  the  affair;  and  should  there  be  a 

1  Tafel,  i.  275.     Rumors  are  current  of  a  revival  of  the  project. 


NEW   MODE  OF   COUNTING.  63 

scarcity  of  shareholders  in  other  places,  Lund  with  its  attor- 
neys may  perhaps  do  the  most.  The  establishment  of  canal 
locks  between  Gottenburg  and  Wenersborg  is  also  in  good 
trim.  I  have  besides  been  busy  with  a  new  method  of  count- 
ing, which  his  Majesty  has  hit  upon  ;  namely,  to  let  the  num- 
eration reach  64  before  it  turns,  in  the  same  way  as  the  ordi- 
nary method  of  counting  turns  at  10.  He  has  himself  devised 
new  characters,  new  names,  etc.,  for  this  purpose ;  and  has 
written  and  changed  a  number  of  points  with  his  own  hand. 
This  paper,  which  I  have  in  my  possession,  will  in  time  de- 
serve a  distinguished  place  in  a  library.  This  method  of 
counting  is  difficult  in  multiplication,  but  it  is  useful  and 
speedy  in  division,  in  the  extraction  of  the  square,  cube,  and 
biquadratic  roots, — all  of  which  terminate  in  64, — ;as  well  as 
in  the  solution  of  smaller  numbers.  His  Majesty  has  great 
penetration." 

Half  a  year  later,  December,  1717,  Swedenborg  presents 
to  his  brother,  Benzelius,  another  and  better-known  side  of 
"  his  Majesty's "  character,  showing  that  even  his  favorite 
mathematicians  and  mechanicians  were  at  the  mercy  of  his 
whims.  He  writes, — 

"I  hear  that  little  brother  Eric  has  gone  to  Upsal  and 
caught  the  small-pox.  I  should  be  very  sorry  if  any  harm 
befel  him  in  consequence.  I  long  to  hear  of  his  recovery. 
His  vivacity  is  very  much  against  his  bearing  it  long ;  but  it 
rests  with  God  to  change  it. 

"I  am  writing  to  M.  Vassenius,  which  I  could  not  do 
before,  as  I  did  not  know  where  he  was.  I  should  like  to  be 
able  to  do  something  in  the  matter  of  the  stipendium  duplex, 
and  of  anything  else  in  his  favor ;  but  the  difficulty  is  simply 
this  :  If  one  presents  to  his  Majesty  anything  which  does  not 
properly  belong  to  his  office,  he  knows  what  answer  he  will 
get.  Again,  if  any  one  were  to  be  asked  to  present  it,  it 
would  have  to  be  Secretary  Cederholm,  who  will  do  nothing. 
The  Councillor  of  Commerce  [Polhem]  has  applied  for 
twenty  things,  and  has  obtained  a  decision  only  in  the  matter 


'•••• 

'  s  r 


- 


64  EMPLOYMENT  BY  CHARLES  XII. 

of  the  salt-works.  I  myself  have  not  spoken  to  his  Majesty 
more  than  twice,  and  then  it  was  only  some  nonsense  about 
mathematics,  riddles  in  algebra,  etc.  On  account  of  the 
Councillor  of  Commerce,  I  have  tried  very  earnestly  not  to 
obtain  this  grace  more  frequently.  Should  I  anywhere  else 
have  occasion  to  speak  to  him  alone,  I  will  try  to  accomplish 
something." 

On  the  yth  of  January  he  writes  from  Brunsbo, — 
"  Enclosed  I  send  you  something  which  I  found  time  to 
write  at  Brunsbo  ;  it  is  a  new  method  of  calculation,  «of  which 
I  received  a  hint  while  I  was  at  Lund.  His  Majesty  is  much 
interested  in  this  kind  of  calculation,  and  has  himself  prepared 
characters,  names,  and  rules  for  a  method ;  but  in  it  there 
was  no.  turn  until  64.  I  have  two  sheets  which  he  himself 
wrote  on  this  subject,  which >shall  belong  to  the  Library.  The 
present  method  goes  to  8  only,  before  it  turns ;  and  could  it 
be  introduced  into  use,  it  would  be  of  great  practical  advan- 
tage. The  example  proves  this.  .  .  .  My  dear  father  is  still 
at  Lund.  He  is  about  to  argue  his  '  Shibboleth,'  and  has 
perhaps  done  so  already.  .  .  .  You  will  please  excuse  my 
haste  ;  I  have  some  commissions  to  attend  to  during  the  Fair. 
Meanwhile  I  wish  you  a  happy  New  Year,  and  much  pleasure 
and  joy.  With  my  remembrances  to  sister  Anna  and  little 
brother  Eric,  I  remain,  honored  and  dear  brother,  your  most 
faithful  brother, 

"EMAN.  SWEDBERG." 

A  week  later,  from  the  same  place,  he  writes, — 

" Most  honored  and  dear  brother , —  As  I  had  some  leisure 
hours  here  at  Brunsbo,  I  have  prepared  an  Art  of  the 
Rules,  or  Algebra,  in  Swedish ;  and,  although  I  had  no  book 
or  other  help  at  hand,  I  have  tried  to  make  it  as  easy  and 
concise  as  possible  :  it  will  probably  not  exceed  six  sheets 
in  print.  I  was  induced  to  write  it  chiefly  because  so  many 
in  Lund  and  Stockholm  have  begun  to  study  algebra,  and 
because  I  have  been  requested  by  others  to  prepare  it.  I 


PROFESSORSHIP  DECLINED.  65 

hope  that  it  will  be  of  service  to  the  public.  .  .  .  Our  dear 
father  has  not  yet  returned  home,  but  he  is  expected  to-day 
or  to-morrow,  when  we  shall  hear  much  news.  He  seems  to 
have  been  well  received  by  his  Majesty ;  he  dined  with  him 
three  times,  and  preached  before  him  on  the  second  Sunday 
in  Advent ;  he  also  conversed  with  him  many  times." 
Again,  a  week  later,  he  writes,  Jan.  21,  1718, — 
"  By  the  last  post  I  had  the  honor  to  receive  your  letter, 
with  the  intelligence  of  the  death  of  Professor  Elfvius.1  God 
grant  him  peace  and  rest !  I  think  it  was  his  own  wish.  In 
the  advice  which  you  so  kindly  gave  me  about  becoming  his 
successor,  I  recognize  most  gratefully  your  kindness  and  good- 
will ;  and  as  I  know  that  no  one  of  my  relations  has  ever 
entertained  such  kind  wishes  towards  me  as  you,  I  recognize 
the  same  good-will  in  the  present  matter.  The  arguments 
you  adduce  are  very  good,  yet  on  the  other  side  I  can  adduce 
some  very  strong  arguments,  as  for  instance  :  First,  I  have 
already  an  honorable  post ;  second,  in  this  post  I  can  be  of 
use  to  my  country,  and,  indeed,  of  more  practical  use  than 
in  the  other  position ;  third,  I  thus  decline  a  Faculty  which 
does  not  agree  with  my  tastes  and  my  turn  of  mind,  by  both 
of  which  I  am  led  to  mechanics,  and  will  be  in  future  to 
chemistry, —  and  our  College  is  noted  for  having  assessors 
who  know  very  little  on  these  subjects.  For  this  reason  I  will 
endeavor  to  supply  this  deficiency,  and  I  hope  that  my  labors 
in  this  direction  will  be  as  profitable  to  them,  as  their  own  may 
be  in  another ;  I  trust  also  that  no  one  will  judge  me  un- 
worthy of  my  office.  With  regard  to  envy,  this  is  more  a  mat- 
ter of  laughter  to  me  than  of  apprehension ;  for  I  have  always 
striven  to  cause  myself  to  be  envied,  and  in  the  future  I  shall 
perhaps  become  a  still  greater  object  of  envy.  The  only  object 
which  would  induce  me  to  follow  your  suggestion,  would  be 
that  I  might  be  with  you  and  enjoy  one  or  two  years'  leisure 
to  put  my  thoughts  on  paper,  which  I  have  some  difficulty  in 
doing  now ;  but  I  will  certainly  never  apply  to  the  consistory 

1  Professor  of  Astronomy  at  Upsal. 
5 


66  EMPLOYMENT  BY    CHARLES   XII. 

and  the  rector  in  writing,  for  did  they  not  accede  to  my  ap- 
plication I  should  be  under  the  disadvantage  of  having  sought 
to  be  relieved  of  an  honorable  post,  from  which  I  shall  in  time 
derive  more  profit  than  simply  the  promise  of  being  allowed 
to  enjoy  it  to  the  end  of  my  life  :  moreover,  I  should  be 
under  the  disadvantage  of  having  declared  myself  unfit  for 
my  present  position.  Should  the  Academy  consider  me 
qualified  for  their  position,  they  may  take  all  necessary  steps 
without  my  application  ;  but  if  they  do  not  consider  me  quali- 
fied, I  am  indifferent  about  it.  I  thank  you  a  thousand  times 
for  your  well-intended  kindness ;  I  shall  never  be  happier 
than  in  being  near  you,  so  as  to  have  more  frequently  the  op- 
portunity of  doing  what  is  pleasant  to  you.  .  .  .  [Speaking 
of  his  mathematical  discoveries,]  I  wish  I  had  some  more  of 
these  novelties,  ay,  a  novelty  in  literary  matters  for  every  day 
in  the  year,  so  that  the  world  might  find  pleasure  in  them. 
There  is  never  a  lack  of  those  who  will  plod  on  in  the  old 
beaten  track,  while  there  are  scarcely  six  or  ten  in  a  whole 
century  who  are  able  to  generate  novelties  which  are  based 
upon  argument  and  reason.  ...  As  the  King  has  already 
approved  of  the  calculation  based  on  the  number  8,  you  must 
be  so  good  as  not  to  create  any  difficulties  that  may  delay  its 
publication.  I  have  five  little  treatises  which  I  desire  to  lay 
before  my  friends ;  one,  which  I  have  finished  to-day,  is  on 
the  round  particles,  in  which  Dr.  Roberg  will  probably  be  in- 
terested, for  he  is  well  skilled  in  all  that  concerns  these  least 
things,  and  is  delighted  with  such  subjects." 

In  these  liberal  extracts  from  Swedenborg's  letters,  of  which 
we  have  more  at  this  period  of  his  life  than  at  any  other,  we 
copy  without  reserve  whatever  seems  to  throw  any  light  on 
his  character  and  on  the  nature  of  his  pursuits.  The  entire 
collection  is  to  be  found  in  Tafel's  Documents,  in  which  it 
makes  one  hundred  and  seventy  octavo  pages.  During  the 
publication  of  the  D&daZus,  from  1716  to  1718,  Swedenborg 
published  little  else.  A  small  tract  in  Swedish  on  the  tin- 
ware of  Stiernsund,  1 71 7,  is  attributed  to  him ;  and  it  is  prob- 


THEORY  OF  ROUND  PARTICLES.        67 

able  that  his  Algebra,  a  i6mo.  of  135  pages,  was  printed  in 
1718.  Of  works  of  this  period  in  manuscript  there  are  still 
preserved  an  essay  on  the  "  Importance  of  Instituting  an 
Astronomical  Observatory  in  Sweden  ; "  one  on  the  "  Causes 
of  Things;"  "A  new  Theory  concerning  the  End  of  the 
Earth,"  in  which  he  holds  that  the  earth  revolves  in  a  resist- 
ing medium  and  is  gradually  retarding  its  motion  and  ap- 
proaching the  sun ;  a  project  for  "  Assisting  Commerce  and 
Manufactures,"  by  controlling  the  export  of  Swedish  iron  and 
copper ;  a  "  Memorial  on  the  Establishment  of  Salt-works  in 
Sweden ;  "  an  essay  on  "  The  Nature  of  Fire  and  Colors ;  " 
and  some  discussions  of  higher  mathematics,  involving  the 
Differential  and  Integral  Calculus.  Of  the  direction  of  his 
studies  at  this  time,  the  following  letter  to  Benzelius,  written 
3Oth  January,  1718,  gives  further  information  :  — 

"  I  send  you  something  new  in  physics,  on  the  particles  of 
air  and  water,  proving  them  to  be  round,  which  may  militate 
against  the  philosophy  of  many ;  but  as  I  base  my  theory 
upon  experience  and  geometry,  I  do  not  expect  that  any 
one  can  refute  it  by  arguments.  Preconceived  ideas  received 
from  Descartes  and  others  will  be  the  greatest  obstacle  to  it, 
and  will  cause  objections.  Dr.  Roberg,  who  in  everything  that 
is  minute  and  subtile  is  himself  subtile,  is  best  able  to  judge 
respecting  it :  if  you  would  therefore  be  kind  enough  to  leave 
this  with  him,  I  should  like  to  hear  his  opinion.  If  Professor 
Valerius  would  lay  aside  his  own  and  his  father's  Cartesianism, 
his  opinion  would  also  be  valuable  to  me.  I  have  materials 
enough  on  this  subject  to  fill  a  large  book,  as  is  done  by  the 
learned  with  their  speculations  abroad ;  but  as  we  have  no 
appliances  here  for  such  large  publications,  I  must  cut  my 
coat  according  to  the  cloth,  and  introduce  only  the  most 
general  views.  The  use  of  this  seems  to  me  to  enable  us  to 
investigate  more  thoroughly  the  nature  of  air  and  water  in  all 
its  parts  :  for  if  the  true  shape  of  the  particles  is  once  discov- 
ered, we  obtain  with  it  all  the  properties  which  belong  to  such 
a  shape.  I  hope  that  this  rests  on  a  solid  foundation.  In 


68  EMPLOYMENT  BY  CHARLES  XII. 

future  I  should  not  wish  to  publish  anything  which  has  not 
better  ground  to  rest  upon  than  the  former  things  in  the 
Dcedalus.  .  .  . 

"  With  respect  to  the  professorship  at  Upsal  I  expressed 
my  thoughts  to  you  from  Brunsbo,  and  I  hope  you  will  receive 
them  kindly.  I  hope  I  shall  be  able  to  be  as  useful  in  the 
post  which  has  been  intrusted  to  me,  and  also  to  secure  to 
myself  as  many  advantages  ;  my  present  position  being  only 
a  step  to  a  higher  one,  while  at  Upsal  I  should  have  nothing 
more  to  expect.  Moreover,  I  do  not  believe  that  the  King 
would  like  me  to  give  up  my  present  position.  With  regard 
to  the  College,  I  will  try  most  diligently  to  make  myself  at 
home  in  mechanics,  physics,  and  chemistry ;  and  at  all  events 
to  lay  a  proper  foundation  for  everything,  when  I  hope  no  one 
will  have  any  longer  a  desire  to  charge  me  with  having  entered 
the  College  as  one  entirely  unworthy  :  and  yet  I  have  no  de- 
sire, either,  to  be  called  legis  consultissimus" 

In  February  he  writes, — 

"  I  received  to-day  a  letter  from  the  Councillor  of  Com- 
merce at  Wenersborg,  in  which  he  presses  and  urges  me  to 
journey  thither.  He  has  now  received  the  order  that  the 
locks  are  to  be  built,  and  that  the  navigation  between  the 
Baltic  and  North  Sea  is  to  be  through  the  lakes  of  Wener 
and  Wetter  to  Norkoping,  at  his  Majesty's  private  expense. 
There  is  considerable  work  ahead,  but  I  shall  have  to  stay 
here  for  two  weeks  yet.  Then,  with  your  leave,  I  will  come 
as  fast  as  possible  to  Upsal,  in  order  to  see  through  the  press 
what  I  have  in  hand.  The  Councillor  of  Commerce  writes 
that  the  King  wonders  and  expresses  dissatisfaction  at  my 
not  going  on  with  the  Dadalus  as  before.  I  should  like  very 
much  to  take  something  down  with  me  which  will  please  the 
King.  Let  nothing  interfere  with  my  new  method  of  calcu- 
lation ;  it  may  be  very  useful  for  those  who  desire  to  use  it. 
I  take  the  whole  responsibility  upon  myself." 

Too  late  :  the  advantages  of  8  as  a  base  of  calculation  are 
obvious,  and  it  is  a  matter  of  constantly  repeated  regret  that  it 


BUILDING  LOCKS.  69 

is  now,  as  indeed  it  was  before  Swedenborg's  time,  too  late  to 
make  the  change. 

About  this  time  he  complains  of  a  "rise  in  the  postage,"  as 
threatened  among  other  exactions  of  Charles  XII.  Another 
hardship,  complained  of  at  the  same  time,  was  the  price 
appointed  for  relays  furnished  to  travellers  by  the  Swedish 
peasants,  in  order  to  force  them  to  take  the  regular  posting 
vehicles.  He  says, — 

"The  first  thing  I  will  do  will  be  to  procure  myself  a 
horse  and  sledge,  and  for  each  journey  a  barrel  of  oats  in 
the  sledge ;  and  the  first  one  I  meet,  I  will  ask  for  a  share  of 
his  provisions.  I  have  not  the  least  desire  to  pay  twenty- 
seven  dalers  in  copper  for  a  sledge  and  driver  to  the  next  inn 
on  the  road  to  Upsal,  two  Swedish  miles." 

These  complaints  prepare  us  for  a  delay,  and  the  next 
letter  is  from  Wenersborg,  the  following  June  :  — 

"Most  honored  and  dear  brother, —  Some  time  has  elapsed 
since  I  wrote  to  you.  The  delay  is  in  proportion  to  the 
distance  and  to  the  rise  in  postage ;  yet  I  hope  that  your 
confidence  remains  as  before. 

"  We  are  now  daily  occupied  in  bringing  the  first  lock  to 
completion,  which  cannot,  however,  be  done  before  Michael- 
mas. The  expenses  are  small  beyond  all  expectation,  because 
the  whole  work  is  of  timber.  Yet  it  is  built  so  as  to  last  a 
long  time,  and  any  part  which  gives  way  can  be  repaired  with- 
out renewing  the  whole  structure.  I  am  trying  to  prevail  on 
the  Councillor  of  Commerce  to  appoint  one  or  two  persons 
to  superintend  the  work ;  and  as  I  think  Messrs.  Vassenius 
and  Hasselbom  would  like  such  an  appointment,  I  have  pro- 
posed them.  .  .  . 

"  It  seems  to  me  there  is  but  little  reward  for  the  trouble 
of  advancing  the  cause  of  science, —  partly  on  account  of  the 
lack  of  funds,  which  prevents  our  going  as  far  into  it  as  we 
ought ;  and  partly  also  on  account  of  the  jealousy  which  is 
excited  against  those  who  busy  themselves  more  than  other 
persons  with  a  given  subject.  Whenever  a  country  leans 


70  EMPLOYMENT   BY  CHARLES  XII. 

towards  barbarism,  it  is  vain  for  one  or  two  persons  to  try  to 
keep  it  upright. 

"Baron  Gortz  has  passed  twice  through  this  place,  and 
inspected  the  work  at  the  locks,  over  which  he  is  chief. .  .  . 
His  Majesty  examined  also  Trollhatta,  and  I  had  the  favor  of 
conversing  much  with  him.  I  did  not  offer  him  my  "  Art  of 
the  Rules"  and  my  "Attempt  to  find  the  Longitude,"  further 
than  by  leaving  them  upon  his  table,  when  he  sat  and  perused 
them  for  a  considerable  time.  Many  wonderful  tales  are  re- 
ported about  us  in  the  neighborhood.  Among  other  things 
they  say  that  we  stopped  up  the  Trollhatta  Falls  at  the  mo- 
ment the  King  was  there.  Such  unbounded  confidence 
have  they  in  art." 

Again  from  Wenersborg,  September  i4th,  he  writes, — 

"  Your  welcome  letter  reached  me  in  Stromstadt  \  it  had 
come  after  me  to  Wenersborg  and  Stromstadt,  and  therefore 
I  could  not  answer  it  sooner.  I  have  been  twice  at  Strom- 
stadt, and  I  shall  probably  have  to  go  there  soon  again. 

"  I  found  his  Majesty  most  gracious  towards  me,  much 
more  so  than  I  had  any  reason  to  expect,  which  I  regard  as 
a  good  omen.  Count  Morner  also  showed  me  all  the  favor 
that  I  could  wish. 

"Every  day  I  had  some  mathematical  matters  for  his 
Majesty,  who  deigned  to  be  pleased  with  all  of  them.  When 
the  eclipse  took  place,  I  took  his  Majesty  out  to  see  it, 
and  talked  much  to  him  about  it.  This,  however,  is  a  mere 
beginning.  I  hope  in  time  to  be  able  to  do  something  in  this 
quarter  for  the  advancement  of  science ;  but  I  do  not  wish 
to  bring  anything  forward  now,  except  what  is  of  immediate 
use.  His  Majesty  found  considerable  fault  with  me  for  not 
having  continued  my  Dadalus  ;  but  I  pleaded  want  of  means, 
of  which  he  does  not  like  to  hear.  I  expect  some  assistance 
for  it  very  soon. 

"  With  respect  to  brother  Esberg  [a  nephew  of  Benzelius], 
I  will  see  that  he  gets  some  employment  at  the  locks ;  but 
nothing  can  be  done  before  next  spring.  If  he  meanwhile 


POLHEM'S   DAUGHTERS.  j\ 

studies  mathematics  well,  and  begins  to  make  models,  it  will 
be  perhaps  of  use  to  him.  I  wish  very  much  that  little  brother 
Ericus  was  grown  up.  I  believe  that  next  spring,  if  every- 
thing remain  as  it  is,  I  shall  begin  the  building  of  a  lock  my- 
self, and  shall  have  my  own  command ;  in  which  case  I  hope 
to  be  of  service  to  one  or  the  other.  I  receive  only  three 
dalers  a  day  at  present  at  the  canal  works  ;  but  I  hope  soon 
to  receive  more. 

"  Polhem's  eldest  daughter  is  betrothed  to  a  chamberlain 
of  the  King,  of  the  name  of  Manderstrom.  I  wonder  what 
people  will  say  about  this,  inasmuch  as  she  was  engaged  [by 
her  father]  to  me.  His  second  daughter  is  in  my  opinion 
much  prettier. 

"  How  is  Professor  Valerius  ?  I  should  be  very  glad  to 
hear  of  his  health  and  good  condition.  Remember  me  to 
sister  Anna." 

Polhem's  second  daughter,  Emerentia,  was  young  at  this 
time,  not  quite  sixteen,  and  did  not,  it  would  appear,  recipro- 
cate Swedenborg's  tender  feeling.  Her  father,  it  is  said,  gave 
him  a  written  claim  upon  her  in  the  future,  in  the  hope  that 
she  would  become  more  yielding,  and  this  contract  she  was 
obliged  to  sign.  She  fretted  about  it,  however,  so  much 
every  day  that  her  brother  was  moved  with  compassion  and 
purloined  the  contract  from  Swedenborg,  whose  only  com- 
fort consisted  in  daily  perusing  it,  and  who  therefore  quickly 
missed  his  treasure.  His  sorrow  at  his  loss  was  so  evident 
that  her  father  insisted  on  knowing  the  cause  ;  and  on  learn- 
ing it,  was  willing  by  an  exercise  of  his  authority  to  have  the  lost 
document  restored.  But,  when  Swedenborg  himself  saw  her 
grief,  he  voluntarily  relinquished  his  right,  and  left  the  house, 
it  is  said,  with  a  solemn  vow  never  to  fix  his  affections  on  any 
woman  again.  However  this  may  have  been,  it  is  certain 
that  he  never  married,  and  that  he  never  forgot  his  first  love. 
She  was  married  a  few  years  after  to  Ruckerskold,  Councillor 
of  the  Court  of  Appeals,  to  whom  she  bore  nine  children, 
and  died  in  1 760.  Late  in  Swedenborg's  life  some  of  her 


72  EMPLOYMENT  BY   CHARLES  XII. 

daughters  used  to  visit  him,  and  he  told  them  that  he  could 
then  converse  with  their  mother  whenever  he  desired.1 

What  called  Swedenborg  to  Stromstadt,  he  does  not  ex- 
plain. But  from  other  sources  we  learn  that  he  was  engaged 
in  superintending  the  transportation  of  two  galleys,  five  large 
boats,  and  a  sloop,  seventeen  miles  overland,  from  Stromstadt 
to  Iderfjol,  for  the  aid  of  Charles  XII.  in  his  operations  against 
Frederickshall.  Baron  Sandels,  in  his  eulogy,  gives  the  credit 
of  the  feat  to  Swedenborg,  and  in  fact  we  have  seen  that, 
several  years  before,  he  had  drawn  out  plans  for  such  trans- 
portation ;  but  we  do  not  know  whether  the  plan  adopted 
was  his  or  Polhem's. 

In  October  of  the  same  year,  1718,  he  writes  again  from 
his  father's  home  at  Brunsbo, — 

"Most  honored  and  dear  brother, —  I  am  just  starting  for 
Carlsgraf,  after  having  been  here  about  three  weeks.  Mean- 
while I  have  seen  Dcedalus,  part  vi.,  through  the  press.  It 
contains  the  following  articles :  i.  Directions  for  Point- 
ing Mortars,  by  C.  Polhem ;  2.  An  Easy  Way  of  Counting 
Balls  which  are  Stored  in  the  Shape  of  a  Triangle,  by  Em. 

S ;  3.  Useful  Directions  in  Ship-Building.  4.  A  Proof 

that  our  Vital  Nature  consists  of  Small  Tremulations, — with 
a  great  Number  of  Experiments;  5.  Respecting  a  Curve, 
the  Secant  of  which  forms  Right  Angles  with  it.  I  have  sent 
this,  the  figures  and  letter-press,  to  his  Majesty.  As  soon  as 
I  have  an  opportunity,  I  will  send  it  over  to  you. 

"  By  the  first  opportunity  I  will  also  send  it  to  Vice-Presi- 
dent Hjarne,  with  a  courteous,  but  at  the  same  time  decided 
letter,  to  stop  his  impertinences,  because  it  is  quite  possible 
that  some  one  may  show  up  the  puerilities  and  shortcom- 
ings in  scientific  matters  which  he  himself  has  had  the  dar- 
ing to  publish.  I  will  send  you  a  copy  of  this  letter  some 
other  time. 

1  Not,  however,  as  we  understand,  with  the  old  interest.  There  is  a  tradition 
among  Swedenborg's  friends  in  London,  that  in  later  life  he  spoke  of  the  excel- 
lent Countess  Gyllenborg  as  the  one  awaiting  him  in  the  other  world. 


FAMILY   MATTERS.  73 

"  Our  dear  father  has  made  us  a  present  of  his  share  in  the 
mining  property.  I  wish  we  may  succeed  in  arriving  at  an 
equitable  arrangement.  Brother  Lars  is  somewhat  unpleasant 
towards  me.  It  would  be  well  for  him  not  to  continue  in 
this  course  ;  for  it  does  not  seem  proper  in  a  relative  that  he 
should  be  more  on  the  side  of  Ahlgren  than  on  that  of  his 
brother-in-law.  Among  all  my  brothers  and  relatives  there  is 
not  one  who  has  entertained  a  kind  feeling  towards  me,  ex- 
cept yourself;  and  in  this  I  was  confirmed  by  a  letter  which 
my  brother  wrote  to  my  father  about  my  journey  abroad.  If 
I  can  in  any  way  show  a  due  sense  of  gratitude,  I  will  always 
do  so.  Brother  Unge  does  not  hold  his  hands  away  from 
any  one ;  at  least  he  has  estranged  my  dear  father's  and  my 
dear  mother's  affections  for  the  last  four  years.  Still,  this 
will  probably  not  be  to  his  advantage. 

"  His  Majesty  will  probably  go  to  Wenersborg  at  the  close 
of  the  month,  to  inspect  the  army.  I  will  see  if  I  cannot  get 
leave  to  follow  to  Norway.  If  I  can  be  of  any  service  there 
to  my  brothers  and  sisters,  it  will  be  the  greatest  pleasure  to 
me." 

This  letter  hints  at  several  matters  which  bespeak  our  atten- 
tion,— the  unfortunate  King's  expedition  against  Norway,  in 
which  he  is  about  to  lose  his  life ;  Swedenborg's  position  in 
his  own  family,  which  is  plainly  not  as  pleasant  as  could  be 
wished ;  and  his  patrimony,  the  means  of  his  support. 

Vice-President  Hjarne,  here  and  elsewhere  referred  to  with 
some  irritation,  himself  an  eminent  man  of  science,  seems  to 
have  been  slow  to  recognize  Swedenborg's  merit  and  fitness 
for  a  place  in  the  College  of  Mines,  of  which  he  was  Vice- 
President.  Perhaps  he  was  jealous  of  his  being  a  favorite 
with  the  King,  and  perhaps  he  visited  on  him  a  share  of  his 
quarrel  with  Bishop  Swedberg  about  his  "Shibboleth," — an 
essay  on  the  use  of  the  Swedish  language.  At  a  little  later 
period  we  find  a  better  understanding  between  the  men  of 
science. 

At  this  time  Swedenborg  had  but  one  brother  living,  Jes- 


74  EMPLOYMENT   BY  CHARLES   XII. 

per,  a  young  man  of  twenty-four  years,  then  studying  naviga- 
tion in  England,  and  afterwards  schoolmaster  for  five  years  in 
"New  Sweden,"  America.  It  was,  then,  of  his  brothers-in- 
law, — the  husbands  of  his  sisters  Hedwig  (Lars  Benzelius1), 
Catharina  (the  Dean  Unge),  and  possibly  of  Margaretha 
(Captain  Lunstedt), — that  Swedenborg  complained,  as  un- 
friendly. Of  the  cavalry  officer  we  know  almost  nothing.  Of 
Lars  Benzelius,  though  brother  of  Swedenborg's  special  friend, 
Ericus  Benzelius,  Anna's  honored  husband,  we  hear  no  good. 
To  Swedenborg,  at  least,  he  seems  to  have  been  hostile 
always,  though  at  a  later  period  he  sat  with  him  in  the  College 
of  Mines.  The  Dean  Unge  was  a  favorite  curate  with  Bishop 
Swedberg,  who  had  a  high  regard  for  him ;  and  some  years 
later  we  find  him  on  friendly  terms  with  Swedenborg  himself. 
It  seems  probable  that  the  unfriendliness  at  this  time  in  the 
family  arose,  as  so  frequently  happens,  from  disagreement 
about  the  management  of  their  property.  We  have  seen  that 
Bishop  Swedberg's  fortune  was  mostly  that  of  his  first  wife, 
the  mother  of  all  his  children ;  and  that,  using  this  freely  in 
his  own  projects,  he  found  it  difficult  to  supply  Emanuel  with 
what  was  necessary  in  his  studies  abroad.  It  is  not  improb- 
able that  some  of  the  other  members  of  the  family  found 
trouble  in  securing  their  share  at  the  same  time,  and  may 
have  helped  their  father  to  feel  that  Emanuel  was  requiring 
more  than  was  wise  to  expend  in  scientific  pursuits.  The 
chief  part  of  this  property  left  by  the  Bishop's  first  wife  was 
in  iron-works  at  Skinskatteberg.  It  now  appears  that  the 
Bishop  '  has  made  us  a  present  of  his  share  in  the  mining 
property ; '  and  later,  by  purchase  from  the  other  heirs,  Swe- 
denborg and  the  husband  of  a  cousin  became  sole  owners. 
In  1720  the  second  wife  of  the  Bishop  died;  and  that  she 
was  not  so  much  estranged  from  Emanuel  as  he  at  one  time 
thought,  we  may  infer  from  her  desire  to  leave  to  him  her 
mining  property  at  Starbo.  It  was  only  by  the  earnest  per- 
suasion of  her  husband,  who  had  his  youngest  son,  Jesper, 
1  Afterwards  Benzelstierna. 


DEATH   OF   CHARLES  XII.  75 

close  at  heart,  though  living  in  America,  that  she  was  induced 
to  make  the  other  children  sharers ;  and  this  she  provided 
should  be  arranged  by  EmanuePs  paying  them  a  certain  sum, 
retaining  the  mining  property  himself.  That  he  varied  from 
this  intention,  by  taking  Lars  Benzelius  as  a  partner,  he  after- 
wards had  reason  to  regret.  Still  another  piece  of  mining 
property  came  into  his  hands,  on  the  death  of  his  own 
mother's  brother,  about  1721,  which  gave  him  trouble  enough 
in  suits  with  his  aunt,  Brita  Behm,  who  held  four-fifths  interest 
and  wanted  everything  her  own  way. 

The  expedition  of  the  King  to  Norway  was  ill-starred. 
Happily  Swedenborg  thought  better  of  his  desire  to  be  in  the 
party.  On  the  8th  of  December,  1718,  he  writes  again  to 
Benzelius, — 

"I  had  the  pleasure  to  receive  your  letter  at  Brunsbo, 
where  I  intend  to  remain  until  the  Christmas  holidays,  and 
then  go  for  a  few  weeks  into  the  mining  districts  and  to 
Stockholm.  Thank  God  !  I  have  escaped  the  campaign 
to  Norway,  which  had  laid  a  hold  so  strong  upon  me  that 
I  could  escape  only  by  dint  of  some  intrigues.  I  was  glad 
beyond  measure  to  hear  of  your  intended  journey  hither ;  I 
will  by  all  means  wait  for  you  here.  Although  our  dear 
mother  makes  some  remarks  about  the  fodder,  still  your 
horses  will  be  very  well  taken  care  of  at  Magister  Unge's, 
who  is  rector  of  Fagre,  or  else  at  the  inn  where  brother 
Lundstedt  stayed  for  two  weeks ;  I  will  take  care  of  this. 
If  my  sledge  and  furs  would  be  of  use  for  the  journey,  you 
might  bring  them  with  you. 

"  P.  S.  Gyllentow,  a  redoubt  near  Frederickshall,  was  taken 
by  storm  on  the  27th  of  November. 

"  I  expect  my  sledge,  my  furs,  and  muff." 

Alas  !  before  this  letter  was  written,  and  only  three  days 
after  the  taking  of  the  redoubt  mentioned  in  the  postscript, 
in  the  same  siege  of  Frederickshall,  his  Majesty,  Charles  XII., 
had  been  struck  in  the  head  by  a  ball,  while  kneeling  in  an 
advanced  trench  and  leaning  on  the  parapet,  and  with  a  deep 


76  ASSESSORSHIP. 

sigh  fell  dead.  Said  his  French  engineer,  "  There,  the  play  is 
over ;  let  us  be  gone  !  "  Years  afterwards  Swedenborg,  in  his 
Economy  of  the  Animal  Kingdom,  describing  the  "  genuine 
valor"  resulting  "from  the  imperative  mandate  of  the  soul, 
which  aspires  to  the  glory  or  pleasure  anticipated  from  the 
achievement  of  general  good  to  society,"  added,  "This 
genuine  valor  we  may  observe  illustrated  in  Charles  XIL, 
late  King  of  Sweden,  that  hero  of  the  North,  who  did  not 
know  what  that  was  that  others  called  fear ;  nor  what  that 
spurious  valor  and  daring  that  is  excited  by  inebriating 
draughts,  for  he  never  tasted  any  liquid  but  pure  water :  of 
him  we  may  say  that  he  led  a  life  more  remote  from  death, 
and  in  fact  lived  more,  than  other  men  "  (vol.  i.  p.  192). 

A  long  silence  fitly  marks  the  loss  of  the  royal  patron. 
Polhem  breaks  it,  April  18,  1719,  asking  Benzelius  for  news 
of  Swedenborg,  saying  that  he  has  not  heard  from  him  for 
some  time,  and  three  of  his  own  letters  have  come  back  to 
him  from  Stockholm.  "As  I  understand,"  he  says,  "that  he 
is  probably  now  at  Upsal,  I  must  beg  you  to  offer  him  my 
greeting,  or  else  to  send  it  to  him  by  letter  wherever  he  may 
be  at  present,  and  also  to  ask  him  to  favor  me  with  one  of  his 
welcome  letters,  which  are  so  much  the  more  acceptable  in 
our  house  as  he  has  given  us  sufficient  cause  to  love  him  as 
our  own  son." 

From  Swedenborg  himself  we  hear  nothing  till  the  next 
November,  almost  a  year  from  his  last  date,  when  he  writes 
to  Benzelius  from  Stockholm  about  a  report  from  France  that 
the  earth  is  found  to  be  sensibly  approaching  the  sun.  He 
had  previously  written  his  own  opinion  that  there  is  a  very 
gradual  slowing  of  the  earth's  motion,  and  hence  a  corre- 
sponding gradual  approach  to  the  sun ;  but  he  is  incredulous 
as  to  any  detection  of  approach  by  observation.  The  dis- 
couragement shown  in  a  previous  letter  as  to  the  reception 
of  scientific  labors  in  Sweden  seems  growing  upon  him. 

"  During  the  summer  I  took  the  necessary  leisure  to  com- 
mit some  tilings  to  paper,  which  I  trust  will  be  my  last ;  as 


NEW  ESSAYS.  77 

speculations  and  arts  like  these  are  left  to  starve  in  Sweden, 
where  they  are  looked  upon  by  a  set  of  political  blockheads 
as  scholastic  matters  which  must  remain  in  the  background, 
while  their  own  supposed  refined  ideas  and  their  intrigues 
occupy  the  foreground. 

"  What  I  have  in  hand  consists,  first,  of  a  minute  descrip- 
tion of  our  Swedish  blast-furnaces ;  secondly,  of  a  theory  or 
an  investigation  into  the  nature  of  fire  and  stoves,  where  I 
have  collected  everything  I  could  gather  from  blacksmiths, 
charcoal-burners,  roasters  of  ore,  superintendents  of  iron- 
furnaces,  etc. ;  and  upon  this  the  theory  is  based.  I  hope 
that  the  many  discoveries  which  I  have  made  therein  will  in 
time  prove  useful.  For  instance,  a  fire  may  be  made  in  some 
new  stoves  for  warming,  where  the  wood  and  coal  which 
usually  last  a  day  will  last  six  days,  and  will  give  out  more 
heat.  Vice-President  Hjarne  has  approved  of  this  in  all  its 
particulars,  and  if  desired  I  can  show  the  proof  of  it.  The 
former  of  these  treatises  I  handed  in  to-day  to  the  Royal 
College  of  Mines. 

"  I  have  also  written  a  little  anatomy  of  our  vital  forces, 
which,  I  maintain,  consist  of  tremulations.  For  this  purpose 
I  made  myself  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  anatomy  of 
the  nerves  and  membranes  j  and  I  have  proved  the  harmony 
which  exists  between  that  and  the  interesting  geometry  of 
tremulations,  —  together  with  many  other  ideas,  where  I 
found  that  I  agreed  with  those  of  Baglivius.  The  day  before 
yesterday  I  handed  them  in  to  the  Royal  Medical  College. 

"  Besides  this,  I  have  improved  the  little  treatise,  which  was 
published  at  Upsal,  about  the  high  water  in  primeval  times ; 
and  I  have  added  a  number  of  clear  proofs,  together  with 
an  undeniable  demonstration  how  stones  were  moved  in  a 
deep  ocean.  I  have  also  adduced  arguments  to  show  how 
the  northern  horizon  was  changed,  and  that  it  is  reason- 
able to  suppose  that  Sweden  in  the  primeval  ages  was  an 
island.  This  I  have  handed  in  to  the  Censor  of  Books,  so  as 
to  publish  it  anew.  There  is  also  quite  a  number  of  smaller 


78  ASSESSORSHIP. 

papers.  The  deep  study  by  which  I  have  endeavored  to 
compass  these  subjects  has  caused  me  to  look  with  contempt 
upon  everything  I  have  heretofore  published ;  but  I  intend 
to  improve  them  very  much  when  they  are  to  be  trans- 
lated [from  Swedish  into  French  or  Latin].  .  .  . 

"  With  much  love,  I  remain  your  most  faithful  servant, 

"EMAN.  SWEDENBORG." 

This  is  the  first  letter  we  have  in  which  Swedenborg  as- 
sumes the  new  name,  which  had  been  given  in  June  to  the 
wife  and  children  of  Bishop  Swedberg,  with  admission  to 
the  equestrian  order  of  the  nobility,  and  so  to  a  seat  in  the 
Diet, —  an  honor  granted  by  the  new  Queen,  Ulrica  Eleonora, 
younger  sister  of  Charles  XII.,  out  of  the  friendly  regard  she 
had  always  shown  for  the  independent  clergyman,  and  in 
return,  perhaps,  for  his  support  of  the  royal  power. 

The  essays  here  referred  to  are  still  preserved,  but  most 
of  their  subjects  were  afterwards  treated  at  much  greater 
length.  Of  the  little  book  on  geological  changes,  we  may 
mention  that  so  late  as  1842  the  great  chemist,  Berzelius, 
referred  to  it  in  terms  of  commendation  before  the  Scandi- 
navian Scientific  Association.  But  though  in  advance  of  its 
age,  remarkable  for  acuteness  of  observation  and  deduction, 
and  in  some  measure  anticipating  the  science  of  geology, 
its  premises  were  not  altogether  sound,  and  its  results  have 
been  superseded  by  the  more  extended  researches  of  later 
students. 

This  letter  seems  to  have  pleased  the  worthy  brother-in- 
law  ;  for,  three  weeks  later,  Swedenborg  writes  again,  "  I  am 
delighted  to  hear  that  what  I  wrote  you  in  my  last  was  to  your 
liking."  He  adds  some  further  argument  to  show  that  no 
sudden  approach  to  the  sun  is  taking  place.  Incidentally  he 
brings  in  his  theory  of  the  vortical  energy  which  controls  the 
solar  system,  and  also  each  world  in  itself,  bu,t  in  too  brief 
terms  to  be  cited  as  a  statement  of  the  theory.  At  greater 
length  he  gives  reasons  for  thinking  that  the  sun  cannot  be, 


FUTURE  PLANS.  79 

as  some  had  conjectured,  the  abode  of  the  damned.  He 
would  rather  suspect  that  there  is  the  abode  of  the  blessed : 
since  from  the  sun  is  all  the  heat,  light,  and  life  of  the  world, 
indeed  the  most  refined  elements  of  existence,  where  we 
might  look  for  that  which  is  above  and  within  matter,  and 
might  even  imagine  the  seat  of  God  Himself. 

Here  we  have  a  ready  basis  for  Swedenborg's  later  under- 
standing, after  his  illumination,  that  God  is  in  the  sun  of 
heaven,  and  that  through  this  sun  He  sends  life  and  force 
into  the  sun  of  this  world,  for  the  support  of  material  exist- 
ence. As  to  the  fires  of  the  damned,  he  suggests  that  the 
pain  of  burning  is  the  effect  of  destruction  of  tissue,  which 
cannot  be  what  is  meant  in  the  Bible ;  but  rather  he  thinks 
the  remorses  of  conscience  might  be  a  sufficiently  strong  fire. 
In  this,  too,  he  is  approaching  the  doctrine  he  afterwards 
taught,  when  better  instructed,  that  the  fires  of  hell  are  the 
fires  of  selfish  passion.  But  he  piously  concludes,  "  I  hope 
that  my  philosophizing  may  not  be  misinterpreted ;  for,  after 
all,  the  foundation  is  God's  Word." 

On  the  ist  of  December  he  writes  again, — 

"  Most  honored  and  dearest  brother, —  I  send  you  herewith 
the  little  work  which  I  mentioned  in  my  last  respecting  a  deci- 
mal system  in  our  coinage  and  measures.  This  is  the  last 
that  I  will  publish  myself,  because  every-day  and  home  affairs 
grow  of  small  account,  and  because  I  have  already  worked 
myself  poor  by  them.  I  have  been  singing  long  enough ;  let 
us  see  whether  any  one  will  come  forward  and  hand  me 
some  bread  in  return. 

"  There  are,  however,  some  plans  which  I  have  entertained 
for  some  time,  and  which  at  last  have  assumed  a  definite 
shape.  I  should  like  to  see  how  far  they  meet  with  your 
approval :  First,  to  translate  what  I  have  published  into  Latin 
or  French,  and  to  send  it  then  to  Holland  and  England ;  to 
which  I  should  like  to  add,  by  way  of  improvement,  some  of 
my  discoveries  about  fire  and  stones,  and  about  some  im- 
provements in  mining  matters ;  besides  some  other  papers 


80  ASSESSORSHIP. 

which  are  not  yet  printed.  Would  you  be  kind  enough  to 
give  the  names  of  some  who  write  scientific  papers  and 
memoirs  ?  Second,  as  I  think  I  now  in  some  measure  under- 
stand the  mechanics  which  are  of  use  in  mining  districts  and 
in  mines,  so  far  at  least  as  to  be  able  better  than  any  one  else 
to  describe  what  is  new  and  old  there,  and  further  to  under- 
stand the  theory  of  fire  and  stones,  as  to  which  I  have  made 
quite  a  number  of  discoveries,  I  intend  to  spend  all  my  re- 
maining time  upon  what  may  promote  everything  that  con- 
cerns mining,  and,  on  the  basis  which  has  already  been  laid, 
in  collecting  as  much  information  as  possible.  Third,  if 
fortune  so  favors  me  that  I  shall  be  provided  with  all  the 
means  that  are  required,  and  if  meanwhile  by  the  above 
preparations  and  communications  I  shall  have  gained  some 
credit  abroad,  I  should  prefer  by  all  means  to  go  abroad  and 
seek  my  fortune  in  my  calling,  which  consists  in  promoting 
everything  that  concerns  the  administration  and  working  of 
mines.  For  he  is  nothing  short  of  a  fool,  who  is  independent 
and  at  liberty  to  do  as  he  pleases,  and  sees  an  opportunity 
for  himself  abroad,  and  yet  remains  at  home  in  darkness  and 
cold,  where  the  Furies,  Envy,  and  Pluto  have  taken  up  their 
abode  and  dispose  the  rewards,  and  where  labors  such  as  I 
have  performed  are  rewarded  with  misery.  The  only  thing 
I  would  desire  until  that  time  comes  is  bene  later e,  to  find  a 
sequestered  place  where  I  can  live  secluded  from  the  world. 
I  think  I  may  find  such  a  corner  in  the  end  either  at  Starbo 
or  at  Skinskatteberg.  But  as  this  would  take  four  or  five 
years'  time,  I  am  quite  ready  to  acknowledge  that  long-laid 
plans  are  like  long  roofs,  apt  to  tumble  in ;  for  man  proposes, 
God  disposes.  Still  I  have  always  been  in  favor  of  a  man's 
knowing  what  he  is  doing,  and  of  his  forming  for  himself 
some  clever  plan  of  what  it  is  most  practicable  for  him  to 
carry  out  in  his  life.  I  remain,  most  honored  and  dear 
brother, 

"  Your  most  faithful  servant  and  brother, 

"EMAN.  SWEDENBORG." 


CHEMISTRY.  8 1 

This  letter  we  have  copied  in  full  for  its  frank  expression  of 
the  writer's  intentions  at  this  time ;  and  now  we  must  pass 
over  a  number  of  letters  that  follow,  relating  for  the  most  part 
to  various  speculations  in  mechanics,  anatomy,  and  literary 
matters.  Anatomy  seems  to  occupy  his  time  mostly  for  some 
months.  Then,  May  2,  1720,  he  writes, — 

'•'I  am  at  present  engaged  in  examining  all  the  chemistry 
contained  in  the '  treasury  of  the  Sudeman  Library,  which  be- 
longs now  to  Hesselius ;  for  I  have  proposed  to  myself  to 
examine  thoroughly  everything  that  concerns  fire  and  metals, 
a  primis  incunabulis  usque  ad  maturitatem,  according  to  the 
plan  of  the  memorandum  which  has  been  already  communi- 
cated to  you.  I  take  the  chemical  experiments  of  Boyle, 
Reucher,  Hjarne,  Simons,  and  others,  and  trace  out  nature 
in  its  least  things,  instituting  comparisons  with  geometry  and 
mechanics.  I  am  also  encouraged  every  day  by  new  discov- 
eries as  to  the  nature  of  these  subtile  substances ;  and  as  I 
am  beginning  to  see  that  experience  in  an  uninterrupted  series 
seems  to  be  inclined  to  agree  therewith,  I  am  becoming  more 
and  more  confirmed  in  my  ideas.  It  seems  to  me  that  the 
immense  number  of  experiments  that  have  been  made  affords 
a  good  ground  for  building  upon  ;  and  that  the  toil  and  ex- 
penses incurred  by  others  may  be  turned  to  use  by  working 
up  with  head  what  they  have  collected  with  their  hands. 
Many  deductions  may  thus  be  made  which  will  be  of  use  in 
chemistry,  metallurgy,  and  in  determining  the  nature  of  fire 
and  other  things." 

Here,  we  regret  to  say,  ends  in  effect  this  series  of  letters 
from  Swedenborg  to  Benzelius.  Two  or  three  brief  notes  a 
year,  for  a  few  years  longer,  are  all  that  have  been  preserved. 
In  these  few  there  is  no  change  of  kind  manner ;  and  the 
loving  dedication  of  a  small  work  to  this  brother-in-law,  then 
Right  Reverend  Bishop,  in  1 734,  precludes  the  suspicion  of 
any  coolness.  Either  Swedenborg's  engrossing  engagements 
checked  the  correspondence,  or  the  later  letters  were  not 
preserved  with  the  earlier  ones.  In  1742  Benzelius  was 

6 


82  ASSESSORSHIP. 

appointed  Archbishop  at  Upsal,  the  primacy  of  Sweden ;  but 
he  died  in  1 743,  before  entering  on  the  duties  of  the  office. 
He  was  a  man  of  great  learning,  and  had  an  extensive  cor- 
respondence with  learned  men  abroad.  Of  this  correspon- 
dence, including  the  letters  of  Swedenborg,  eighteen  folio 
volumes  are  preserved  in  the  Cathedral  Library  at  Linkoping. 
His  wife,  Anna  Swedenborg,  lived  till  1 766  ;  and  it  would  be 
a  pleasant  thing  to  find  some  of  the  letters  which,  we  may 
presume,  she  received  from  her  loving  brother.  But  they 
were  written,  no  doubt,  in  their  mother  tongue,  and  Anna 
has  not  left  them  to  us. 

"To  the  Archbishop,"  rightly  says  the  editor  of  the  Docu- 
ments, we  "owe  a  large  debt  of  gratitude"  for  having  pre- 
served this,  series  of  letters  from  his  young  brother-in-law, 
written  in  the  most  vivacious  and  enterprising  period  of  his 
life.  In  this  unrestrained  flow  of  friendly,  family  letters  we 
gain  a  nearer,  fuller  view  of  the  natural  character  of  the  man 
than  we  could  have  gained  in  any  other  way.  True,  it  is 
the  spiritual  character  of  Swedenborg  that  we  most  desire 
to  know ;  but  the  spiritual  is  born  of  the  natural,  in  subject- 
ing its  strength  of  mind  and  of  will  to  the  Divine  Will.  And 
thus,  to  know  the  spiritual  intimately,  we  need  to  know  in 
what  struggle  it  has  been  born.  By  what  we  have  seen  in 
these  frank  letters,  of  Swedenborg's  natural  self-confidence 
and  impatience  at  want  of  appreciation,  we  shall  better  un- 
derstand the  depth  of  the  spiritual  humility  and  heavenly 
serenity  that  were  given  in  later  life.  He  loves  much  who 
feels  that  much  has  been  forgiven. 


CHAPTER   V. 

TWENTY  YEARS'  LABOR. — OPERA  PHILOSOPHICA. 

OUR  next  information  of  Swedenborg's  movements  is  from 
a  petition  filed  in  the  archives  of  the  Royal  College  of  Mines, 
dated  Skinskatteberg,  June  19,  1720,  setting  forth  that  he 
has  spent  all  his  time  and  money  in  perfecting  himself  in 
what  would  make  him  useful  to  his  country,  in  conducting 
important  works  in  its  service,  and  in  publishing  scientific 
treatises ;  wherefore  he  begs  the  Royal  College  graciously  to 
provide  him  with  some  salary  or  other  means  of  support,  by 
virtue  of  his  appointment  as  Assessor  Extraordinary.  What 
answer  was  returned  to  the  petition,  we  do  not  know.  Our 
documents  are  silent  in  regard  to  him  for  a  year.  Probably 
he  spent  the  time  in  retired  study,  agreeably  to  his  intention, 
as  declared  to  Benzelius.  It  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  his 
office  as  Assessor  Extraordinary  brought  him  no  salary,  ex- 
cept when  in  actual  employment,  of  which  he  had  little  after 
the  death  of  Charles  XII.  On  the  3oth  of  June,  1721,  from 
the  sea-port,  Helsingborg,  he  writes  to  the  President  and  the 
Royal  College  of  Mines, — 

"As  I  am  about  to  undertake  a  new  journey  abroad,  it  is 
my  duty  to  make  it  known  to  your  Excellency  and  to  the 
Honorable  College  in  writing ;  especially  as  my  only  object 
is  to  collect  more  minute  information  respecting  the  condi- 
tion of  the  mines  abroad  and  the  processes  which  are  followed 
there,  and  also  to  make  inquiries  respecting  commerce,  so  far 
as  it  relates  to  metals." 

After  stating  more  fully  his  plans,  he  asks  for  instructions 
and  advice,  and  says  that  he  intends,  with  God's  help,  to  be 


84  TWENTY  YEARS'  LABOR. 

in  Amsterdam  in  six  weeks,  where  he  will  await  advices.  Of 
this  journey  we  have  a  brief  sketch,  as  follows  :  — 

"  In  the  spring  of  1 72 1  I  again  went  abroad,  going  to  Hol- 
land by  Copenhagen  and  Hamburg.  There  I  published  my 
Prodromus  Principiorum  Rerum  Naturalium,  and  several 
other  short  treatises  in  octavo.  From  Holland  I  travelled  to 
Aix-la-Chapelle,  Liege,  Cologne,  and  other  adjacent  places, 
examining  the  mines  there.  Thence  I  went  to  Leipsic,  where 
I  published  my  Miscellanea  Observata.  Leaving  that  town  I 
visited  all  the  mines  in  Saxony,  and  then  returned  to  Hamburg. 
From  Hamburg  I  returned  to  Brunswick  and  Goslar,  and 
visited  all  the  mines  in  the  Hartz  Mountains  belonging  to  the 
houses  of  Hanover  and  Liineburg.  The  father-in-law  of  a  son 
of  the  Emperor  and  of  a  son  of  the  Czar,  Duke  Louis  Rudolph, 
who  resided  at  Blankenburg,  graciously  defrayed  all  my  ex- 
penses ;  and  on  taking  leave  of  him  he  presented  me  with  a 
gold  medal  and  a  large  silver  coffee-pot,  besides  bestowing 
upon  me  many  other  marks  of  his  favor.  I  then  returned  to 
Hamburg,  and  thence,  by  way  of  Stralsund  and  Ystad,  to 
Stockholm,  having  been  absent  one  year  and  three  months." 

The  two  Latin  treatises,  the  publication  of  which  is  here 
briefly  mentioned,  have  been  translated  and  published  in 
London  under  the  respective  titles  of  Some  Specimens  of 
a  Work  on  the  Principles  of  Chemistry,  and  Miscellaneous 
Observations  connected  with  the  Physical  Sciences.  In  the 
first-named  volume  are  included  also  three  other  publications 
of  Swedenborg,  of  the  same  year,  "New  Observations  and 
Discoveries  respecting  Iron  and  Fire  ;"  "A  New  Method  of 
Finding  the  Longitudes  of  Places;"  and  "A  New  Method 
of  Constructing  Docks  and  Dykes."  These  essays  give  a  fair 
specimen  of  Swedenborg's  manner  of  treating  scientific  sub- 
jects. He  first  collects  the  observations  and  experiments  of 
others,  adding  a  few  of  his  own,  and  then,  with  geometry  for 
a  guide,  searches  for  the  hidden  causes  and  operations  of 
nature.  His  theory  of  matter  we  find  well  summarized  by 
one  of  his  ablest  translators,  Dr.  J.  J.  Garth  Wilkinson. 


THEORY  OF   PARTICLES.  85 

The  theory  is,  "  that  roundness  is  the  form  adapted  to  mo- 
tion ;  that  the  particles  of  fluids,  and  specifically  of  water,  are 
round,  hollow  spherules,  with  a  subtile  matter,  identical  with 
ether  or  caloric,  in  their  interiors  and  interstices ;  that  the 
crust,  or  crustal  portion,  of  each  particle  is  itself  formed  of 
lesser  particles,  and  these  again  of  lesser,  and  so  forth, — 
water,  being  in  this  way  the  sixth  dimension,  or  the  result  of 
the  sixth  grouping  of  the  particles  ;  that  the  interstices  of  the 
fluids  furnish  the  original  moulds  of  the  solids,  and  the  rows 
of  crustal  particles  forced  off  one  by  one  by  various  agencies, 
furnish  the  matter  of  the  same  j  that  after  solid  particles  are 
thus  cast  in  their  appropriate  moulds,  their  fracture,  aggrega- 
tion, the  filling-in  of  their  pores  and  interstices  by  lesser  parti- 
cles, and  a  number  of  other  and  accidental  conditions,  provide 
the  units  of  the  multiform  substances  of  which  the  mineral 
kingdom  is  composed.  According  to  this  theory,  then,  there 
is  but  one  substance  in  the  world,  namely,  the  first;  the 
difference  of  things  is  difference  of  form ;  there  are  no  posi- 
tive, but  only  relative,  atoms  ;  no  metaphysical,  but  only  real, 
elements ;  moreover,  the  heights  of  chemical  doctrine  can  be 
scaled  by  rational  induction  alone,  planted  on  the  basis  of 
analysis,  synthesis,  and  observation." 

To  the  above  may  be  added  the  remarkable  fact  that  Swe- 
denborg's  crustal  particles  bear  to  the  interior  and  interstitial 
space  the  ratio  in  volume  of  one  to  two,  and  in  weight  that  of 
eight  to  one, —  a  coincidence  with  the  ratios  of  the  later  dis- 
covered elements  that  is  highly  suggestive.1  The  theory  once 
established  would  be  found  to  furnish  explanations  of  many 
other  facts  ;  but  the  time  for  its  verification  has  not  yet  come. 
The  same  is  true  of  the  theory  of  color,  as  depending  on  the 
recipient,  light •  itself  being  purely  white, —  a  theory,  by  the 
way,  earnestly  and  independently  advocated  by  Goethe,  and 
learned  by  Newton  himself  in  the  other  world,  as  stated  by 

1  Dumas,  in  his  Chemical  Philosophy,  remarks  of  Swedenborg,  "  It  is  then 
to  him  we  are  indebted  for  the  first  idea  of  making  cubes,  tetraedes,  pyramids, 
and  the  different  crystalline  forms,  by  grouping  the  spheres." 


86  TWENTY  YEARS'   LABOR. 

Swedenborg.  The  truth  is,  that,  in  spite  of  his  constant  ap- 
peal to  experiment  and  to  geometry,  Swedenborg's  reasoning 
does  not  always  carry  conviction.  He  seems  to  have  a  cer- 
tain inner  philosophic  sense,  by  which  he  himself  sees  clearly 
what  others  need  to  have  shown  by  intermediate  steps.  But 
the  chief  reason  why  his  scientific  works  have  not  yet  found 
themselves  in  the  line  of  thought  of  men  of  science,  is  that 
modern  scientific  work  has  been  mainly  devoted  to  observa- 
tion and  differentiation  of  effects,  while  Swedenborg's  thought 
rose  at  once  to  causes,  with  the  ultimate  aim  of  learning  the 
operation  of  the  First  Cause. 

On  his  return,  Swedenborg  addressed  a  letter,  July  14, 
1722,  to  King  Frederic,  the  German  husband  of  Queen  Ulrica 
Eleonora,  commencing  as  follows  :  — 

"Most  mighty  and  gracious  King, — As  your  Royal  Majesty 
takes  a  gracious  interest  in  the  mining  produce  of  your  coun- 
try, and  as  you  are  likewise  pleased  to  encourage  all  efforts 
by  which  the  productiveness  of  our  mines  may  be  stimulated 
and  increased,  I  therefore  venture  in  all  humility  to  come 
before  you  with  some  measures  by  which  the  mode  of  work- 
ing the  mines  in  Sweden  may  be  improved,  limiting  myself  for 
the  present  to  some  improvements  in  the  working  of  copper. 
For,  by  carefully  investigating  the  process  used  in  Sweden, 
and  comparing  it  with  that  employed  abroad,  taking  into  con- 
sideration the  difference  in  the  ore,  I  have  discovered  some 
means  by  which  the  yield  of  copper  may  be  considerably 
increased." 

Swedenborg  then  offers  to  prove,  by  experiment  on  a  large 
scale,  that  he  can  obtain  ten  per  cent  more  copper  from  the 
ore  than  is  usually  obtained  in  Sweden,  besides  making  the 
result  sure,  which  was  at  that  time  subject  to  the  "luck"  of 
the  smelters.  In  case  of  failure  of  the  experiment,  he  under- 
takes to  bear  the  loss ;  and  on  the  other  hand  asks,  that,  in 
case  of  success,  he  may  receive  the  first  year's  gain  by  the 
new  process,  throughout  the  country ;  the  right  to  demand 
a  second  trial  being  reserved  to  either  party. 


ATTENDANCE  AT  THE  COLLEGE.  g/ 

This  proposition  was  referred  to  the  Royal  College  of 
Mines,  leading  to  a  long  correspondence  between  Sweden- 
borg, the  Royal  College  of  Mines,  and  the  Board  of  Mines  at 
Fahlun,  where  he  wished  the  experiment  to  be  tried.1  It  is 
not  known  that  the  trial  ever  took  place,  but  Swedenborg 
afterwards  published  his  improved  method  in  the  volume  on 
Copper  of  his  Opera  Philosophica. 

In  the  spring  of  the  following  year,  1723,  we  find  Sweden- 
borg reporting  himself  to  the  Royal  College  of  Mines  as  ready 
to  enter  regularly  upon  the  duties  of  the  College,  from  which 
he  had  been  so  long  debarred  by  his  journeys  and  labors  in 
Sweden  and  abroad.  The  College  was  ready  to  welcome  him 
to  their  sittings,  by  virtue  of  his  old  appointment ;  but  mean- 
while there  had  been  new  appointments  of  Ordinary  Assessors, 
and  a  question  arose  as  to  Swedenborg's  proper  rank.  On  its 
being  referred  to  him,  he  readily  consented  to  take  his  seat 
at  the  foot  of  the  Board  at  that  time,  but  with  the  condition 
that  thereafter  he  should  be  in  the  line  of  promotion  with 
the  rest.  Thenceforward  he  became  an  active  member  of 
the  College,  attending  its  meetings  with  diligence,  save  when 
abroad  or  occupied  at  the  sessions  of  the  Diet.  For  now,  in 
this  same  winter  and  spring  of  1723,  Swedenborg  seems  first 
to  have  become  an  active  member  of  the  Diet,  in  which  he 
had  become  entitled  to  a  seat,  as  the  head  of  his  house,  on 
its  ennoblement  in  1719.  It  does  not  appear  that  he  ever 
distinguished  himself  as  a  debater,  neither  his  taste  nor  his 
strength  lying  in  that  direction.  But,  always  alive  to  what 
concerned  the  welfare  of  his  country,  he  did  not  fail  to  have 
decided  convictions  on  important  questions,  which  he  was  in 
the  habit  of  expressing  in  the  form  of  memorials  laid  before 
the  Diet.  The  earliest  of  these  which  has  been  preserved, 
probably  the  first  that  he  presented,  bears  the  date  of  Feb.  5, 
1723,  being  read  on  the  7th.  Its  subject  is  the  state  of  the 

1  At  Fahlun  is  the  largest  copper  mine  of  Sweden,  which  was  worked  before 
the  Christian  era,  and  at  one  time  yielded  five  thousand  tons  a  year.  Gustavus 
Vasa  earned  his  bread  in  this  mine  when  driven  from  his  throne. 


88  TWENTY   YEARS'   LABOR. 

finances  in  Sweden,  and  its  doctrine  is  that  of  the  wisest 
statesmen  to  the  present  day.  The  opening  paragraph  is 
as  follows :  — 

"The  chief  cause  of  a  country's  increase  in  wealth  is  the 
balance  of  commerce  :  if  its  imports  are  greater  than  a  coun- 
try can  pay  with  its  own  products,  it  follows  that  it  loses  an- 
nually considerable  sums  by  leaving  them  in  the  hands  of 
foreign  nations;  besides,  it  diminishes  the  capital  which  it 
collected  under  more  favorable  circumstances,  and  which  it 
should  hand  down  to  posterity.  As  soon  also  as  a  country,  by 
an  imprudent  course,  suddenly  falls  into  poverty,  it  unavoid- 
ably sinks  in  the  estimation  of  other  nations,  and  they  refuse 
any  longer  to  trade  with  it,  although  in  former  times  they  may 
have  enriched  themselves  by  its  wealth  and  sucked  out  its 
substance  and  marrow.  Yea,  more  serious  consequences  still 
may  ensue ;  for  unless  a  watchful  eye  is  kept  on  the  balance 
of  a  country's  .trade,  a  general  want  may  be  caused  thereby 
which  makes  itself  felt  in  the  private  circumstances  of  every 
one ;  fortunes  and  possessions  in  the  land  are  diminished  in 
value  ;  no  means  are  forthcoming  for  the  support  of  the  navy 
and  army ;  the  defence  of  the  country  becomes  weak  and 
impotent;  the  public  servants  must  be  satisfied  with  small 
salaries ;  manufactures  and  agriculture,  together  with  all  the 
moneys  invested  in  them,  depreciate  in  value ;  besides  other 
contingencies  which,  in  such  a  case,  overtake  the  higher 
as  well  as  the  lower  ranks,  and  especially  the  business  men, 
who  must  suffer  most  heavily  from  it." 

He  then  presents  two  computations,  the  first  showing  the 
average  imports  and  exports  during  the  reign  of  Charles 
XI.,  when  Swedish  commerce  was  most  flourishing ;  and  the 
second  showing  the  balance  of  trade  at  the  time  of  the  me- 
morial. In  the  first  case  the  balance  of  exports  was  four  and 
a  half  million  florins  in  favor  of  Sweden,  and  in  the  second 
case  the  balance  was  from  two  and  a  half  to  three  millions 
against  the  country.  "From  which,"  he  says,  "it  follows 
that  the  rich  products  of  Sweden  are  no  longer  sufficient  to 


MEMORIALS   TO   THE   DIET.  89 

pay  the  excess  of  imported  goods  and  merchandise,  but  that 
annually  a  part  of  the  cash  property  of  the  country  has  to  be 
employed  to  adjust  the  difference.  ...  As  every  one  now  is 
left  in  freedom  to  express  his  well-meant  thoughts,  and  to 
suggest  how  the  common-weal  is  likely  to  be  best  helped,  it 
is  hoped  that  it  will  not  be  unfavorably  received  if  I  insist,  in 
all  humility,  that  there  is  nothing  the  present  Diet  can  do  of 
greater  importance  than  to  examine,  and  to  assist  and  pro- 
mote, all  propositions  which  have  for  their  purpose  to  infuse 
new  life  into  Swedish  commerce,  so  as  to  make  our  balance 
even ;  and  this  for  the  sake  of  the  private  welfare  of  every  one 
of  us,  and  also  for  that  of  our  whole  posterity."  Next  he  shows 
that  Sweden  has  lost,  first,  the  revenues  formerly  derived  from 
various  provinces  that  have  been  conquered  by  Russia  and 
Denmark ;  second,  the  freighting  business  which  she  formerly 
enjoyed,  but  which,  during  her  wars  and  by  the  decay  of  her 
shipping,  has  gone  into  foreign  hands ;  third,  her  former 
profitable  commerce  with  the  now  lost  provinces.  Finally, 
he  points  out  Swedish  iron  and  copper  mining  interests  as 
the  most  important  in  the  balance  of  trade,  and  most  worthy 
of  attention,  and  concludes  with  recommending  careful  in- 
quiry how  the  mercantile  marine  may  be  built  up,  unnecessary 
importation  checked  or  cheapened,  and  domestic  manufac- 
tures developed  and  protected. 

On  the  1 8th  of  the  same  month,  Swedenborg  memorializes 
the  Diet  against  the  rule  and  law  of  the  country  which  requires 
the  mining  of  a  baser  metal  to  give  way  to  that  of  a  more 
noble,  even  when,  as  he  shows,  the  mining  of  the  baser,  by 
its  greater  abundance,  may  be  many-fold  more  valuable. 

In  the  following  May  he  had  occasion  to  present  another 
and  longer  memorial  to  the  same  purport,  in  consequence  of 
instructions  giver^by  the  Diet  to  the  Royal  College  of  Mines 
to  pay  special  attention  to  the  mining  of  silver  and  copper. 
He  showed  that  the  yearly  production  of  iron  in  Sweden  was 
equivalent  to  fifty  tons  of  gold,  and  that  of  copper  was  equiva- 
lent to  less  than  fifteen  tons.  While,  then,  he  would  have 


9O  TWENTY   YEARS'   LABOR. 

the  copper  mines  cherished  and  protected,  he  would  not  have 
it  done  at  the  expense  of  the  iron  mines.  Yet  he  seems  to 
have  been  opposed  in  these  common-sense  views  by  his  own 
colleagues  of  the  Royal  College  of  Mines,  on  what  ground 
we  do  not  know. 

About  the  same  time  he  presented  another  memorial  to 
the  Diet,  setting  forth  the  fact  that  Swedish  iron  was  then 
exported  in  pigs  to  Holland,  whence  it  was  re-shipped  in- 
land to  Liege  and  Sauerland,  where  it  was  puddled  and  rolled 
into  bar  or  sheet-iron,  then  carried  back  to  Holland  and  ex- 
ported at  great  profit  to  various  countries.  This  profit,  he 
declares,  with  small  expense  and  industry  might  be  kept  at 
home.  He  accompanies  his  memorial  with  drawings  and 
details  of  the  puddling  furnaces  and  rolling-mills  abroad, 
and  simply  submits  the  expediency  of  encouragement  by  the 
Government  to  those  who  will  undertake  the  manufacture  in 
Sweden. 

The  treatment  which  this  eminently  reasonable  and  practi- 
cal memorial  received  at  the  hands  of  the  Diet  and  the  Royal 
College  of  Mines  goes  far  to  convince  us  that  Swedenborg 
had  reason  to  complain  of  the  want  of  response  to  his  genius 
in  his  own  country  and  home.  "This  memorial  was  read 
before  the  Committee  on  the  business  of  the  Diet,  April  20, 
1723  ;  by  them  it  was  referred  to  the  Committee  on  Mining 
and  Commerce,  where  it  was  read  May  yth.  By  the  Diet  it 
was  referred  to  the  King,  by  whom  it  was  submitted  to  the 
Royal  College  of  Mines  and  to  that  of  Commerce,  Aug.  10, 
1725.  It  arrived  in  the  Royal  College  of  Mines,  Aug.  23, 
1725,  and  was  filed  for  future  reference,  Sept.  i,  1726."  In 
the  course  of  three  years  and  a  half,  a  matter  which  would 
properly  have  commended  itself  for  instant  action  is  filed 
away  for  future  reference  !  So  slow  we/e  the  Swedes  to 
manufacture  the  "Swedes  iron,"  now  in  demand  throughout 
the  world. 

In  September,  1723,  Swedenborg  asks  of  the  Royal  Col- 
lege of  Mines  to  delay  granting  a  privilege  to  Colonel  Wollan 


ORDINARY   ASSESSOR.  91 

for  a  new  process  of  making  steel,  until  an  improved  process 
can  be  tried  that  he  has  himself  learned  from  Vienna. 

On  the  30th  of  October  he  begs  for  leave  of  absence  to 
attend  to  some  private  affairs  in  the  country,  inasmuch  as  he 
has  been  obliged  during  the  session  of  the  last  Diet,  since  the 
beginning  of  the  year,  to  remain  constantly  at  Stockholm, 
and  has  thereby  neglected  some  of  his  private  affairs.  The 
leave  was  granted  on  condition  that  he  should  first  report 
to  the  President  of  the  College  ;  and  he  went  to  Axmar  to  re- 
build a  furnace  for  himself  and  his  aunt,  Brita  Behm,  which 
had  been  destroyed  by  the  Russians.  From  this  petition  for 
leave  of  absence,  and  from  the  records  of  the  College  show- 
ing his  constant  attendance,  it  would  appear  that  Swedenborg 
was  now  on  the  usual  footing  of  Ordinary  Assessors,  so  far  as 
regular  attendance  was  concerned.  And  in  April  of  the  next 
year,  1724,  it  appears  that  the  College  applied  to  the  King, 
requesting  that  the  usual  salary  of  Bergmaster,  or  Mining 
Master,  be  paid  him  in  place  of  Assessor  Benzelstierna,  who 
now  succeeded  to  a  full  salary.  In  accordance  with  this  re- 
quest a  royal  warrant  was  issued  on  the  1 5th  of  July,  appoint- 
ing "the  well-born  Assessor  Emanuel  Swedenborg"  an  "Or- 
dinary Assessor  in  the  Royal  College,  with  a  salary  of  eight 
hundred  dalers  in  silver."  And  again  in  June,  1730,  the  King 
graciously  assents  that  Assessor  Swedenborg,  who  has  hitherto 
enjoyed  only  a  salary  of  eight  hundred  dalers  in  silver,  the 
salary  of  Master  of  Mines  at  Fahlun,  should  succeed  to  the 
full  salary l  of  an  Ordinary  Assessor,  in  place  of  another  As- 
sessor who  had  been  promoted  to  be  Councillor. 

For  ten  years,  from  1723,  Swedenborg  appears  to  have 
been  busily  employed  in  the  Diet  and  the  Royal  College  of 
Mines,  leaving  no  other  record  of  his  labors  than  the  frequent 
appearance  of  his  name  in  the  routine  business  of  the  College, 
from  which  it  would  appear  that  he  was  in  constant  attend- 
ance, save,  when  absent  on  tours  of  inspection  of  mines, 
forges,  forests,  etc.  Of  this  period  of  his  life  we  have  no  diary 

1  This  full  salary  was  twelve  hundred  dalers  in  silver,  —  about  $225. 


Q2  TWENTY  YEARS'  LABOR. 

and  no  private  letters,  nothing  but  the  brief  public  documents 
to  which  we  have  alluded.  That  he  was  all  the  time  strength- 
ening his  powers  of  mind  by  labor,  and  pursuing  his  studies 
with  diligence,  we  have  evidence  in  the  works  which  in  1733 
he  was  ready  to  publish. 

Early  in  this  year  he  respectfully  asked  leave  of  absence 
from  the  King,  for  nine  months,  in  order  that  he  might  re- 
pair to  Dresden  and  put  to  press  his  Opera  Philosophica  et 
Mineralia.  The  Royal  College  of  Mines,  being  asked  its 
opinion,  indorsed  the  petition,  as  "  it  is  well  known  to  the 
College  that  he  has,  with  commendable  industry,  persever- 
ance, and  care,  written  much  pertaining  to  mining  which  is 
useful  and  which  the  College  would  very  much  like  to  see 
printed." 

The  royal  assent  was  graciously  granted,  April  17,  1733. 

"  In  the  month  of  May,"  he  writes,  "  I  again  by  royal  per- 
mission travelled  by  Ystad  to  Stralsund,  and  through  Anclam 
and  Berlin  to  Dresden  ;  and  thence  to  Prague  and  Carlsbad 
in  Bohemia,  where  I  visited  the  mines.  Afterwards  I  went 
back  to  Prague,  thence  by  Eule  to  Dresden,  and  from  Dres- 
den to  Leipsic.  In  Leipsic  I  saw  through  the  press  my  Prin- 
cipia  Rerum  Naturalium,  and  my  Regnum  Subterraneum  de 
Ferro  et  Cupro,  in  folio  ;  together  with  my  Prodromus  Philo- 
sophic Ratiocinantis  de  Infinite,  etc. 

"  From  Leipsic  I  went  afterwards  to  Cassel,  and  over  all  the 
mines  between  that  town  and  Schmalkalden.  I  then  rode 
through  Gotha  to  Brunswick  and  thence  to  Hamburg ;  and 
finally  returned  to  Stockholm  by  way  of  Ystad.  I  reached 
home  in  July,  1734,  about  the  opening  of  the  Diet. 

"  It  would  be  too  prolix  to  mention  all  the  learned  men  I 
visited,  and  with  whom  I  became  acquainted  during  these 
journeys,  since  I  never  missed  an  opportunity  of  doing  so,, 
nor  of  seeing  and  examining  libraries,  collections,  and  other 
objects  of  interest." 

Nevertheless  our  traveller  kept  a  diary  of  this  journey, 
which  is  preserved,  and  is  interesting  to  read  in  its  particular 


CATHOLIC   WORSHIP.  93 

description  of  what  he  found  to  attract  his  attention.  We 
will  draw  from  it  only  what  throws  light  on  his  own  character 
and  pursuits.  Nothing  escapes  his  notice  that  concerns  the 
welfare  of  the  people  among  whom  he  travels,  and  nothing  of 
which  his  own  countrymen  might  learn  to  their  advantage. 
On  the  way  to  Dresden  he  read  a  small  book  on  the  timber 
worm  and  its  devastations  in  ships  and  piles.  He  details  the 
various  remedies  that  have  been  proposed,  and  concludes  in 
favor  of  extending  to  piles  the  charring  already  practised  by 
the  Portuguese  with  their  ship  bottoms. 

At  Dresden  he  notes,  "June  14-19.  I  read  through  and 
corrected  my  Prindpia. 

"June  21  (July  2).  To-day  I  entered  the  chapel  attached 
to  the  Court  of  the  Duke  of  Saxony,  with  the  view  of  being 
present  at  worship,  which  is  celebrated  according  to  the 
Catholic  ritual.  It  was  impossible  for  any  of  the  senses  not 
to  derive  from  it  some  sensation  of  pleasure. 

"The  sense  of  hearing  derived  pleasure  from  the  drums, 
flutes,  and  trumpets,  which  swelled  their  notes  from  the  lowest 
to  the  highest,  and  still  more  from  the  singing  of  the  eunuchs, 
whose  voices  emulate  those  of  maidens,  and  from  the  full 
harmony  of  all  the  instruments. 

"The  sense  of  smell  is  charmed  by  the  scent  and  fragrance 
of  the  burning  incense ;  the  odor  and  smoke  of  which  are 
diffused  in  every  direction  by  boys. 

"The  sense  of  sight  was  impressed  by  the  paintings  of 
every  kind  which  are  hung  around  the  church ;  by  the  mag- 
nificent vestments  with  which  the  priests  and  monks  are 
adorned,  and  in  which  they  move  in  procession  ;  by  the  great 
number  of  ministering  priests  bending  and  walking  in  every 
direction  like  actors,  and  by  their  various  gestures.  And  my 
sight  in  particular  was  charmed,  because  I  happened  to  see 
for  the  first  time  the  Duke  himself  and  the  Duchess,  with  their 
sons  and  daughters, —  all  of  whom  were  most  devout  and 
attentive  to  the  usages  of  their  religion. 

"  The  interior  senses,  too,  were  charmed,  because  all  things 


94  TWENTY   YEARS'   LABOR. 

breathed  an  atmosphere  of  sublimity  and  sanctity ;  because  at 
the  least  sound  of  a  little  bell  all  threw  themselves  on  their 
knees ;  and  because  all  things  were  expressed  in  Latin,  a 
foreign  language,  by  which  the  minds  of  the  common  people 
are  wont  to  be  most  impressed.  In  short,  the  worship  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  seems  to  have  been  especially  in- 
vented, and  to  be  calculated,  to  charm  the  external  senses, 
by  alluring  all  the  organs  of  the  body,  and  so  offering  bland- 
ishments to  the  senses." 

The  double  date  of  this  entry  was  owing  to  the  change 
from  the  old  to  the  new  style,  which  had  not  been  adopted 
in  Sweden  when  he  left.  From  this  time  Swedenborg  adopts 
the  new  style. 

At  Dresden  he  makes  copious  notes  of  philosophical 
treatises  that  he  reads,  and  of  museums  and  various  manufac- 
tures that  he  visits.  In  Bohemia  he  pays  special  attention  to 
mining  and  forging  operations,  of  which  he  gives  minute  ac- 
counts. At  Carlsbad  he  is  struck  by  the  same  characteristics 
of  Catholic  worship  as  at  Dresden. 

''August  1 6.  I  was  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  at 
Carlsbad,  where  I  witnessed  their  worship,  or  their  celebra- 
tion of  the  Mass,  and  where  I  observed  that  all  things  were 
most  delightful,  or  suited  to  all  the  senses.  For  the  ear  they 
had  the  very  best  instrumental  harmony,  having  instead  of 
the  singing  of  the  people  the  completest  instrumental  music. 
The  eye  beheld  various  sports ;  the  gestures  of  boys,  as  well 
as  of  others,  who  were  burning  lamps  and  wax-tapers ;  the 
magnificent  vestments  of  the  priests  and  of  boys  similarly  ar- 
rayed ;  everything  in  the  light  of  these  lamps  shone  with  gold 
and  silver.  The  sense  of  smell  was  regaled  with  the  richest 
fragrance,  with  which  the  altar  or  the  sanctuary  was  per- 
fumed. For  the  sense  of  touch  there  was  the  water  with 
which  the  priest  on  entering  sprinkled  the  people.  The 
interior  sense  was  struck  with  the  priest's  reverence  for  the 
Supreme  Being,  by  his  innumerable  genuflections,  and  by 
those  of  the  boys.  The  taste  alone  was  left  ungratified, 


OPERA  PHILOSOPHICA.  95 

except  by  what  the  priest,  the  participant  in  all  these  pleasures, 
could  derive  from  the  wine,  which  he  alone  drinks.  These 
holy  things  of  worship  are  formed  for  the  pleasure  of  the 
external  senses,  and  they  are  pleasing  to  the  public  gener- 
ally, because  with  them  the  external  senses  are  the  channels 
through  which  the  remembrance  of  the  Supreme  Being  has 
first  to  enter." 

We  note  with  interest  these  first  impressions  of  Sweden- 
borg  in  regard  to  the  outward  worship  of  that  Church  whose 
interior  state  and  doctrine  he  was  afterwards  to  expose.  On 
the  4th  of  September  he  arrived  at  Leipsic,  and  immediately 
began  to  arrange  for  the  printing  of  his  Opera  Philosophica, 
under  the  patronage  and  at  the  expense  of  the  Duke  of 
Brunswick.  On  the  5th  of  October  he  notes,  "A  beginning 
has  been  made  with  the  printing  of  the  Principia.  Six  sheets 
were  printed  this  week.  May  Heaven  favor  it !" 

Remaining  now  quietly  at  Leipsic,  probably  till  March, 
1734,  Swedenborg's  diary  is  suspended.  He  is  busily  en- 
gaged in  seeing  through  the  press  his  Principia,  with  the 
succeeding  volumes  on  the  mining  and  working  of  iron  and 
of  copper  and  brass.  Probably  also  he  availed  himself  of 
intervals  of  leisure  and  opportunities  to  pursue  the  study  of 
human  anatomy.  We  have  seen  that  as  early  as  1719  he 
had  written  an  essay  on  the  "  Anatomy  of  our  most  Subtile 
Nature,  showing  that  our  Moving  and  Living  Force  Consists 
of  Tremulations,"  in  preparation  for  which  he  says  that  he 
made  himself  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  anatomy  of  the 
nerves  and  membranes.  While  at  Dresden,  on  the  present 
journey,  he  notes  with  interest  the  published  observations  of 
some  Italian  students  of  anatomy.  Interspersed  between 
leaves  of  his  Itinerary  are  found  notes  and  essays  on  various 
philosophical  subjects,  some  of  them  perhaps  of  somewhat 
later  date,  on  "The  Magnet,"  "The  Proper  Treatment  of 
Metals,"  "  The  Motion  of  the  Elements,"  "  Comparison  of 
Christian  Wolff's  Ontology  and  Cosmology  with  our  own 
Principia,"  "The  Mechanism  of  the  Soul  and  the  Body;" 


96  TWENTY   YEARS'   LABOR. 

and,  later,  notes  of  a  series  of  his  own  observations  on  the 
anatomy  of  the  body.  It  is  to  be  remarked  here  that  from 
the  first  his  studies  in  anatomy,  afterwards  greatly  extended, 
seem  to  have  had  for  their  end  a  knowledge  of  the  soul 
and  of  its  mode  of  action  in  the  body.  Perhaps  even  a 
still  higher  end  is  hinted  at  in  a  paragraph  on  Faith  in  Christ, 
found  among  the  above-mentioned  notes. 

The  Principia  and  its  two  companion  volumes,  called 
together  Opera  Philosophica  et  Mineralia,  crowned  Sweden- 
borg's  mechanical  and  metallurgical  studies.  The  three 
handsome  folio  volumes,  of  four  hundred  to  five  hundred 
pages  each,  were  prefaced  with  an  excellent  engraving  of 
the  author,  and  a  complimentary  dedication  to  Ludwig 
Rudolph,  Duke  of  Brunswick,  patron  of  learning. 

The  late  Rev.  Augustus  Clissold,  the  learned  translator  of 
the  first  of  these  volumes,  says  in  his  Preface,  "  The  object 
of  the  Principia  is  to  trace  out  a  true  system  of  the  World ; 
and  in  so  doing  the  author  has  distributed  his  subject  into 
three  parts. 

"The  First  Part  treats  of  the  origin  and  laws  of  motion, 
and  is  mostly  devoted  to  the  consideration  of  its  first  princi- 
ples j  which  are  investigated  philosophically,  then  geometri- 
cally, their  existence  being  traced  from  a  first  natural  point 
down  to  the  formation  of  a  solar  vortex,  and  afterwards  from 
the  solar  vortex  to  the  successive  constitution  of  the  elements 
and  of  the  three  kingdoms  of  nature.  From  the  first  element 
to  the  last  compound,  it  is  the  author's  object  to  show  that 
effort  or  conatus  to  motion  tends  to  a  spiral  figure  ;  and  that 
there  is  an  actual  motion  of  particles  constituting  a  solar 
chaos,  which  is  spiral  and  consequently  vortical. 

"  In  the  Second  Part  the  author  applies  this  theory  of  vor- 
tical motion  to  the  phenomena  of  magnetism,  by  which  on 
the  one  hand  he  endeavors  to  test  the  truth  of  his  principles, 
and  on  the  other  by  application  of  the  principles  to  explain 
the  phenomena  of  magnetism  ;  the  motion  of  the  magnetical 
effluvia  being  as  in  the  former  case  considered  to  be  vortical. 


OPERA  PHILOSOPHICA. 


97 


"  In  the  Third  Part  the  author  applies  the  same  principles 
of  motion  to  Cosmogony,  including  the  origination  of  the 
planetary  bodies  from  the  sun,  and  their  vortical  revolutions 
until  they  arrived  at  their  present  orbit ;  likewise  to  the  con- 
stitution and  laws  of  the  different  elements,  the  motions  of  all 
which  are  alleged  to  be  vortical ;  likewise  to  the  constitution 
and  laws  of  the  three  kingdoms  of  nature,  the  animal,  vege- 
table, and  mineral :  so  that  the  entire  Prindpia  aims  to 
establish  a  true  theory  of  vortices,'  founded  upon  a  true 
system  of  corpuscular  philosophy." 

We  shall  have  something  more  to  say  of  this  Prindpia 
when  we  come  to  review  our  author's  philosophical  studies. 
Of  the  other  two  volumes  of  the  Opera  Philosophica  et 
Mineralia,  on  iron  and  on  copper,  there  is  little  to  be  said 
of  general  interest,  since  they  are  practical  treatises  on  the 
mining  and  working*  of  these  metals.  In  his  own  preface 
Swedenborg  says, — 

"  I  intend  to  distribute  the  treatise  upon  each  metal,  as 
here  upon  iron,  into  three  divisions.  The  first  division  will 
comprise  the  processes  and  methods  of  smelting,  particularly, 
that  are  in  use  in  various  parts  of  Europe ;  and  as  the 
methods  in  vogue  in  Sweden  have  come  more  under  my  own 
observation  than  those  employed  in  other  countries,  so  I 
dwell  upon  them  longer  in  proportion.  The  second  division 
will  give  the  various  methods  of  assaying ;  by  which  the  ore  is 
tried  in  small  fires,  or  assaying  furnaces,  and  its  composition 
examined,  in  order  that  it  may  be  the  better  proceeded  with 
on  a  great  scale.  The  third  division  will  embrace  an  account 
of  all  the  different  chemical  processes  that  have  fallen  under 
my  notice,  with  the  characteristics  of  each ;  and  will  deliver 
numerous  experiments  and  observations  which  have  been 
made  on  one  and  the  same  metal  in  the  course  of  solution, 
crystallization,  precipitation,  and  other  chemical  changes." 

The  great  learning  and  practical  value  of  the  volumes  on 
metallurgy  were  at  once  admitted.  The  Academy  of  Sciences 
at  Paris  translated  and  published  the  treatise  on  iron.  In 

7 


98  TWENTY  YEARS'   LABOR. 

England  the  work  was  cited  as  of  the  highest  authority.  In 
Russia  its  author  was  elected  corresponding  member  of  the 
Imperial  Academy  of  Sciences ;  and  at  home  he  became  Fel- 
low of  the  Royal  Academy  of  Sciences.1  Fifty  years  after 
its  publication,  on  the  report  of  a  commission  to  the  unfor- 
tunate Louis  XV.,  that  there  did  not  yet  exist  any  theory  of 
the  magnet,  the  Marquis  de  Thome"  responded  indignantly 
and  at  length,  declaring  that  the  Opera  Philosophica  of  Swe- 
denborg  was  held  in  high  esteem  in  all  Europe,  and  that  the 
most  celebrated  men  had  "  not  disdained  to  draw  materials 
from  it  to  assist  them  in  their  labors;"  that  "the  theory  of 
the  Swedish  author  is  a  true  theory  of  the  magnet,  and  of  all 
magnetism ;  "  and  that  M.  Camus,  who  performed  such  sur- 
prising things  with  the  magnet  before  their  eyes,  admitted 
that  he  had  "  derived  from  this  author  almost  all  the  knowl- 
edge he  exhibited  on  the  subject."  To  this  we  may  add  that 
some  practical  electricians  of  the  present  day  are  finding  in 
this  theory  explanations  of  results  which  they  do  not  find 
explained  by  any  other. 

In  January  of  this  year,  1734,  Swedenborg,  for  the  sake  of 
gaining  more  time  for  the  Opera  Philosophica,  had  sent  to 
the  Royal  College  of  Mines  the  following  request,  which  was 
granted :  — 

"LEIPSIC,  January  19,  1734. 

"Most  well-born  Baron  and  President,  and  also  well-born 
and  esteemed  Councillors  of  Mines  and  Assessors, —  As  at  the 
close  of  next  February  the  leave  graciously  granted  me  by 
his  Royal  Majesty  expires,  I  feel  constrained  in  great  humility 
to  ask  the  most  well-born  President  and  most  honorable 
College  for  a  prolongation  of  my  leave  of  absence  for  a  few 
months ;  because  that  time  will  be  most  important  to  me,  as 

1  Professor  Schleiden  said  that,  if  one  should  undertake  to  enumerate  all  the 
improvements  which  Swedenborg  introduced  into  the  working  of  the  mines  of 
his  country,  he  would  not  find  an  end,  and  what  he  had  merited  from  the  busi- 
ness and  arts  of  Sweden  could  not  be  told.  MATTER:  Swedenborg,  sa  Vie,  etc. 
p.  40. 


RETURN    TO  SWEDEN.  99 

I  am  at  last  under  way  with  the  press-work,  and  fully  at  work, 
and  as  I  am  assured,  and  find  by  the  preparations  that  have 
been  made,  that  I  shall  have  finished  it  by  the  coming 
Easter ;  but,  in  order  to  accomplish  this  in  the  manner  it 
ought  to  be  done,  it  is  indispensable  that  I  should  remain  on 
the  spot.  Besides,  it  would  be  almost  impossible  for  me  to 
start  for  home  during  the  present  or  the  coming  month ;  and 
the  state  of  my  health  will  not  permit  me  to  make  so  long  a 
journey  as  would  have  to  be  made  by  Hamburg,  Copenhagen, 
and  thence  onwards,  during  the  winter  season.  If  I  should 
obtain  from  the  well-born  Baron  and  President  and  the  most 
honorable-  College  this  extension  of  my  leave  of  absence, 
there  might  likewise  be  granted  me  the  permission,  for  which 
I  pray  with  the  same  humility,  that  on  account  of  some  pri- 
vate affairs  I  might  make  from  here  a  tour  to  Liineburg  and 
Cassel ;  and  as  I  shall  require  for  this  purpose  four  or  five 
weeks  only,  I  hope  that  I  may  return  early  in  the  coming 
summer,  with  all  my  work  done,  and  may  be  able  to  pay  my 
respects  to  the  well-born  Baron  and  President,  and  to  the 
most  honorable  Royal  College. 

"  I  remain,  with  profound  respect,  most  well-born  Baron 
and  President,  and  most  honorable  Royal  College,  your  most 
humble  servant, 

"EMAN.  SWEDENBORG." 

We  must  pardon  to  the  manners  of  the  country  and  of  the 
time,  what  strikes  our  ears  as  excess  of  compliment  and  ser- 
vility. We  shall  presently  find  how  much  more  grateful  to 
Swedenborg  himself  was  the  republican  simplicity  he  found 
in  Holland. 

From  the  records  of  the  Royal  College  of  Mines,  it  ap- 
pears that  Swedenborg  was  at  his  post,  examining  candidates 
for  the  position  of  Assay  Master,  on  the  4th  of  July,  1734, 
and  was  constant  in  his  attendance  on  the  duties  of  the 
College,  save  a  few  days'  absence  from  illness  and  from  (at- 
tendance  on  the  Diet,  until  the  middle  of  January,  1736. 


I.OO  TWENTY  YEARS'  LABOR. 

At  that  time  he,  with  his  brother-in-law  Lars  Benzelstierna, 
begged  and  obtained  leave  from  his  Royal  Majesty  to  be 
absent  several  weeks  to  attend  the  burial  in  West  Gothland 
of  their  father,  Bishop  Swedberg.  On  his  return  he  was 
in  attendance  at  the  College  until  the  last  of  May,  when  he 
again  petitioned  the  King  in  the  following  terms  :  — 

"  Most  mighty  and  most  gracious  King,  —  I  thank  your 
Royal  Majesty  most  humbly  for  the  great  favor  you  conferred 
upon  me  several  years  ago,  in  graciously  granting  me  leave 
of  absence,  by  which  I  was  enabled  to  spend  about  a  year 
abroad,  and  to  see  through  the  press  a  work  on  which  I  was 
then  engaged.  I  had  the  honor  of  humbly  presenting  to 
your  Royal  Majesty  that  work,  which  consisted  of  instructions 
and  descriptions  in  metallurgy,  and  also  of  some  new  princi- 
ples in  philosophy.  But  as  that  work  was  only  a  beginning 
and  a  part  of  what  I  had  intended  to  work  out  more  fully,  as 
I  had  announced  and  promised  in  my  former  work,  I  there- 
fore feel  bound  to  do  what  I  have  promised,  and  to  accom- 
plish what  has  been  begun  ;  and  I  am  obliged  for  this  purpose 
to  employ  all  possible  diligence  to  bring  it  to  a  successful 
issue.  But  as  from  my  own  experience  I  see  clearly  that  it  is 
impossible  for  me  to  fulfil  this  promise,  or  to  elaborate  a 
work  requiring  great  thought  and  diligence  with  that  cohe- 
rence and  accuracy  which  it  demands,  and  at  the  same  time 
to  apply  my  time  and  thoughts  to  public  occupations  and  to 
my  official  duties  at  the  Royal  College  to  which  I  am  bound 
in  duty  to  attend;  and  as  this  very  impossibility  prevents 
my  doing  justice  to  both  these  kinds  of  work,  as  the  work 
which  in  all  humility  I  mentioned  above  requires  long  and  deep 
thought,  and  a  mind  unincumbered  with  cares  and  troubles, — 
therefore,  because  I  am  bound  to  fulfil  my  promise,  I  have 
been  induced  to  beg  of  your  Royal  Majesty  that,  to  enable 
me  to  follow  out  this  design  and  this  well-intentioned  pur- 
pose, and'  on  account  of  the  great  extent  of  this  work,  you 
would  graciously  grant  me  leave  to  absent  myself  during 
three  or  four  years  from  the  public  duties  in  your  Majesty's 


NEW  LEAVE  OF  ABSENCE.  IQI 

Royal  College  of  Mines,  and  that  you  would  allow  me  during 
that  time,  while  I  elaborate  and  finish  my  work,  to  stay 
abroad  in  any  place  where  I  may  most  conveniently  carry 
on  my  work, — that  is,  where  I  may  find  all  necessary  help 
in  libraries  and  may  profit  by  conferences  with  the  learned, 
and  where  also  I  may  publish  my  work  when  it  is  finished, 
which  cannot  be  done  at  home  in  this  country.  I  mean- 
while entertain  the  hope  that  this  work  will  probably  be  of 
use  to  the  public,  and  that  it  will  leave  at  least  the  effect 
upon  the  common  opinion  among  the  learned  that  there  are 
some  in  our  dear  native  land  who  can  elaborate  and  publish 
some  things  for  the  general  good  in  science  and  literature, 
upon  which  other  nations  pride  themselves  in  comparison 
with  ourselves. 

"  I  feel  so  much  more  assured  in  all  humility  of  the  most 
gracious  assent  of  your  Royal  Majesty,  inasmuch  as  your 
Majesty's  and  the  country's  College  of  Mines  will,  at  your 
Royal  Majesty's  gracious  command,  make  an  humble  pro- 
position to  you  in  what  way  the  whole  matter  may  be  best 
accomplished,  without  any  part  of  your  Royal  Majesty's 
service  being  neglected. 

"  I  remain,  to  the  hour  of  death,  most  gracious  King,  your 
Royal  Majesty's  most  humble  and  faithful  servant  and  subject, 

"EMAN.  SWEDENBORG." 

On  this  petition  his  Majesty  graciously  desired  the  opinion 
of  the  Royal  College  of  Mines.  After  the  letter  had  been 
read,  Swedenborg  explained  in  a  few  words,  that,  for  the  sake 
of  finishing  the  work  he  had  commenced,  he  required  to  be 
free  and  away  from  his  official  duties  for  three  or  four  years, 
even  as  he  had  mentioned  in  his  humble  petition  to  the 
King ;  and,  as  he  was  well  aware  of  the  importance  of  having 
these  duties  attended  to  meanwhile  by  an  able  and  experi- 
enced man,  well  acquainted  with  them,  he  desired  to  give  up 
half  his  salary,  or  six  hundred  dalers  in  silver,  and  agreed 
not  to  claim  this  back  after  his  return,  until  some  vacancy 


IO2  TWENTY  YEARS'  LABOR. 

should  arise.  He  further  desired  that  this  portion  of  his 
salary  might  be  employed  under  the  direction  of  the  Royal 
College,  increasing  the  pay  of  those  next  in  order,  according 
to  their  services  and  the  trouble  they  might  undergo ;  and 
that  he  himself  might  upon  his  return  have  his  seat  and  vote 
in  the  College  again. 

In  addition  to  these  verbal  explanations  Swedenborg  sub- 
mitted the  following  letter  to  the  College  :  — 

"STOCKHOLM,  May  26,  1736. 

"  I  thank  the  most  honorable  Royal  College  most  hum- 
bly, for  having  taken  into  consideration  the  arguments  and 
motives  contained  in  the  petition  which  I  handed  in  all  hu- 
mility to  his  Royal  Majesty,  and  which  have  induced  me  in 
all  humility  to  apply  for  leave  of  absence  for  three  or  four 
years,  during  which  time  I  might  absent  myself  from  my 
duties  in  the  Royal  College,  and  employ  my  time  in  elaborat- 
ing a  useful  work  which  will  be  a  continuation  of  the  previous 
one,  published  three  years  ago.  I  presume  the  Royal  College 
understands  fully  that  in  this  matter  I  have  no  other  object 
and  no  other  end  in  view  but  simply  to  elaborate  the  above- 
mentioned  work  ;  and  the  Royal  College  probably  entertains 
so  much  less  doubt  on  this  subject,  because  I  have  the  good 
fortune  of  having  been  known  in  the  Royal  College  for  so 
many  years  ;  moreover,  the  former  work  may  serve  as  a  proof 
of  what  I  accomplished  during  that  journey,  from  which  I 
had  nothing  but  trouble  and  expense,  and  the  only  pleasure 
which  I  experienced  being  that  which  I  felt  when  the  work 
was  brought  to  a  close.  In  order  that  the  business  at  the 
Royal  College  may  be  in  no  wise  interfered  with  during  my 
absence,  and  that  no  inconvenience  may  arise  therefrom,  I 
leave  half  of  my  salary  at  the  disposal  of  those  who  perform 
the  service.  I  hope  that  the  Royal  College  will  allow  me  to 
retain  the  other  half,  in  consideration  partly  of  the  well- 
intentioned  and  useful  design  I  have  in  view,  and  partly 
because  I  have  been  an  Assessor  in  the  Royal  College  for 


NEW  TRAVELS.  JQ^ 

twenty  years.  It  will  both  cheer  me  on  and  be  an  assistance 
in  my  proposed  undertaking,  which  will  be  sufficiently  ex- 
pensive. 

"EMAN.  SWEDENBORG." 

In  accordance  with  this  request,  on  a  favorable  report  from 
the  College  of  Mines,  Frederic,  by  royal  decree  of  June  ist, 
granted  the  desired  leave  of  absence,  with  the  continuance  of 
half  his  salary,  and  provision  that  on  his  return  to  the  College 
he  should  be  entitled  to  his  former  seat  and  vote.  From 
the  records  of  the  College  it  appears  that  Swedenborg  was 
present  at  its  meetings  until  the  8th  of  July,  and  that  on  the 
loth  he  took  his  leave,  not  returning  till  November,  1740. 
From  his  minutes  of  travel  we  extract  a  few  notes. 

"July  3-  I  took  leave  of  their  Majesties  at  Carlsberg. 
They  were  very  gracious. 

"  Between  the  3d  and  loth  of  July,  I  took  leave  of  the 
members  of  the  Diet,  my  friends  and  others ;  and  on  the 
9th,  of  the  members  of  the  Royal  College. 

"July  10.  In  the  afternoon  at  two  o'clock  I  left  Stock- 
holm. 

"July  1 2.  Upon  arriving  at  Linkoping  I  spent  a  day  and  a 
night  with  Bishop  Benzelius  and  my  sister,  Anna  Swedenborg. 

"July  1 8.  I  was  in  the  church  on  Christianshavn.  Divine 
service  differs  from  that  of  the  Swedish  Church  only  in  a  few 
ceremonials.  The  clergyman  has  a  stiff  ruffed  collar  lined 
with  black ;  the  blessing  was  pronounced  from  the  pulpit ; 
two  large  candles  burned  on  the  altar  on  account  of  the  com- 
munion which  was  solemnized.  The  warden  invested  the 
clergyman  with  the  communion  garments  while  he  was  stand- 
ing before  the  altar.  There  were  no  epitaphs  or  ornaments 
in  the  church;  only  the  organ  and  an  altar-piece.  The 
offertory  was  not  collected  in  bags  as  in  Sweden,  but  in 
little  boxes,  four  of  which  were  handed  round. 

"[In  the  Public  Garden]  the  most  interesting  object  is 
the  plantation  of  orange-trees,  consisting  of  one  hundred  and 


IO4  TWENTY  YEARS'   LABOR. 

sixty  trees,  not  planted  in  tubs,  but  growing  freely  in  the 
ground  without  being  transplanted ;  together  with  laurels, 
cypresses,  and  other  trees.  During  summer  the  windows  and 
roof  are  removed,  and  the  trees  are  under  the  open  sky ;  in 
the  autumn  they  are  again  enclosed. 

"Juty  2O-  From  noon  till  evening  I  was  at  the  house  of 
Mr.  Schutenhjelm  [the  Swedish  ambassador].  I  learned  that 
among  those  most  celebrated  for  their  learning  in  Copen- 
hagen are  Kramer,  the  Councillor  of  Justice  and  Librarian, 
who  is  distinguished  for  history  and  philology;  Professor 
Holberg,  who  has  written  Danish  comedies  and  a  history  of 
Norway ;  and  Rosencrantz,  the  Privy  Councillor  and  Prime 
Minister.  The  learned  have  spoken  favorably  of  my  work. 
The  same  day  I  saw  Wolff's  x  Natural  Theology,  in  which, 
without  mentioning  my  name,  he  seems  to  refer  to  me. 

"July  21.  I  made  excerpts  from  Wolff's  Ontologia  and 
Cosmologia,  of  those  parts  which  I  shall  need  on  the  way,  in 
order  to  examine  more  thoroughly  his  first  principles  of  phi- 
losophy. 

"July  22.  In  company  with  Secretary  Witt  I  was  at  the 
Library,  which  is  magnificent  and  excellently  arranged.  .  .  . 
It  consists  of  seventy  thousand  volumes  :  the  octavo  volumes 
are  at  the  top,  where  access  is  obtained  by  a  gallery  running 
round  the  interior.  They  showed  me  Cicero's  work  printed 
at  Mayence  in  1456,  which  is  supposed  to  be  the  first  book 
ever  printed  :  they  showed  me  also  my  own  work,  but  without 
knowing  I  was  its  author. 

"August  2.  I  called  [at  Hamburg]  upon  Pastor  Christopher 
Wolf,  of  St.  Catharine's  Church.  He  showed  me  a  collection 
of  original  letters  from  learned  men,  filling  sixty  volumes  in 
folio  and  quarto.  He  showed  me  also  an  autograph  collec- 
tion of  the  names  of  more  than  a  thousand  learned  men ; 
likewise  manuscripts  in  the  Oriental  languages.  The  collec- 
tion of  letters  he  obtained  from  Schminkius,  a  burgomaster 
of  Frankfort." 

1  Johann  Christian  von  Wolff :  Professor  at  Halle. 


HOLLAND. 


105 


In  reference  to  this  call  on  Christopher  Wolf,  we  have  the 
following  note  from  Wolf  to  Benzelius,  dated  Sept.  i,  1736  : 

"  I  received  recently  your  most  welcome  letter,  which  was  handed  to 
me  by  your  relative,  the  most  noble  Swedenborg,  who  was  known  to 
me  by  name  already.  I  value  his  most  celebrated  work  in  mineralogy 
so  much  the  more,  because  in  the  present  age  scarcely  any  one  can  be 
compared  with  this  most  excellent  and  clear-headed  man  in  this  de- 
partment." 

"August  8.  I  was  in  several  churches.  There  are  five 
of  them,  besides  the  Calvinistic  Reformed  and  the  Roman 
Catholic  churches. 

"August  10  and  n.  I  studied  matters  connected  with 
ontology ;  took  a  view  of  the  situation  of  the  town ;  inspected 
its  ramparts,  and  saw  everything  else  that  was  interesting. 

"August  1 7.  From  Naarden  I  came  by  canal-boat  to  Am- 
sterdam, where  I  took  lodgings  in  the  '  Vergoude  Leuwen,' 
or  the  Golden  Lion,  not  far  from  the  Exchange.  In  Amster- 
dam I  stayed  until  the  evening  of  the  2Oth.  .  .  .  The  whole 
city  breathed  nothing  but  lucre. 

"August  21.  ...  I  here  [at  Rotterdam]  considered  why 
it  was  that  it  has  pleased  our  Lord  to  bless  such  an  uncouth 
and  avaricious  people  with  such  a  splendid  country ;  why  He 
has  preserved  them  for  such  a  long  time  from  all  misfortunes  ; 
has  caused  them  to  surpass  all  other  nations  in  commerce 
and  enterprise  ;  and  made  their  country  a  place  whither  most 
of  the  riches  not  only  of  Europe  but  also  ofc  other  places 
flow.  The  principal  cause  seems  to  me  to  have  been  that  it 
is  a  republic,  wherein  the  Lord  delights  more  than  in  mon- 
archical countries  ;  as  appears  also  from  Rome.  The-  result  is 
that  no  one  deems  himself  obliged  and  in  duty  bound  to  ac- 
cord honor  and  veneration  to  any  human  being,  but  considers 
the  low  as  well  as  the  high  to  be  of  the  same  worth  and  con- 
sequence as  a  king  and  an  emperor ;  as  is  also  shown  by  the 
native  bent  and  disposition  of  every  one  in  Holland.  The 
only  one  for  whom  they  entertain  a  feeling  of  veneration  is 
the  Lord,  putting  no  trust  in  flesh ;  and  when  the  Highest  is 


IO6  TWENTY  YEARS'   LABOR. 

revered  most,  and  no  human  being  is  in  His  place,  it  is  most 
pleasing  to  the  Lord.  Besides,  each  enjoys  his  own  free-will, 
and  from  this  his  worship  of  God  flows ;  for  each  is  as  it 
were  his  own  king,  and  rules  under  the  government  of  the 
Highest ;  and  from  this  it  follows  again  that  they  do  not,  out 
of  fear,  timidity,  and  excess  of  caution,  lose  their  courage  and 
their  independent  rational  thought,  but  in  full  freedom  and 
without  being  borne  down  they  are  able  to  fix  their  souls 
upon,  and  elevate  them  to,  the  honor  of  the  Highest,  who  is 
unwilling  to  share  His  worship  with  any  other.  At  all  events, 
those  minds  that  are  borne  down  by  a  sovereign  power  are 
brought  up  in  flattery  and  falsity ;  they  learn  how  to  speak 
and  act  differently  from  what  they  think ;  and  when  this  con- 
dition has  become  inrooted  by  habit,  it  engenders  a  sort  of 
second  nature,  so  that  even  in  the  worship  of  God  such  per- 
sons speak  differently  from  what  they  think,  and  extend  their 
flattering  ways  to  the  Lord  Himself,  which  must  be  highly 
displeasing  to  Him.  This  seems  to  me  the  reason  why  they 
[the  Hollanders]  above  other  nations  enjoy  a  perfect  bles- 
sing :  their  worshipping  Mammon  for  their  God  and  striving 
only  after  money,  does  not  seem  to  be  consistent  with  a  con- 
stant blessing ;  still  there  may  be  ten  among  a  thousand,  or 
among  ten  thousand,  who  ward  off  punishment  from  the  others 
and  cause  them  to  be  participants  with  themselves  of  tem- 
poral blessings.1 

"August  2$.  .  .  .  On  our  way  to  Brussels  two  Franciscan 
monks  were  on  the  canal-boat :  one  of  these  stood  on  deck 
for  four  hours  in  one  position,  and  during  the  whole  of  this 
time  said  his  prayers  devoutly  ;  they  probably  were  for  those 
travelling  in  the  boat.  Such  prayers  must  certainly  be  agree- 
able to  God,  so  far  as  they  proceed  from  an  honest  and  pure 
heart,  and  are  offered  with  genuine  devotion  and  not  in  the 

1  Some  seventy  years  earlier  John  Locke  was  similarly  pleased  in  visiting 
Holland.  Dugald  Stewart  cites  him  to  this  effect :  "  The  blessings  which  the 
people  there  enjoyed  under  a  government  peculiarly  favorable  to  civil  and 
religious  liberty,  amply  compensated  in  his  view  for  what  their  uninviting  ter- 
ritory wanted  in  scenery  and  climate." 


FRANCE. 


ID/ 


spirit  of  the  Pharisees ;  for  prayer  avails  much,  as  in  the  case 
of  Moses,  when  the  people  were  slain,  and  in  other  cases. 
Paul  desired  that  others  should  pray  for  him." 

In  the  Cathedral  at  Brussels  he  is  struck  again  with  the 
same  peculiarities  of  the  Catholic  worship  he  had  noted  at 
Dresden.  On  the  way  through  France  he  comments  upon 
the  absorption  of  the  wealth  by  the  churches,  the  convents, 
and  the  fat  and  lazy  monks,  whose  use  is  a  mystery  to  him. 
Arriving  at  Paris  he  notes, — 

"  September  6.  I  made  the  first  draught  of  the  introduc- 
tion to  my  new  treatise  [Economy  of  the  Animal  Kingdom], 
namely,  that  the  soul  of  wisdom  is  the  knowledge  and 
acknowledgment  of  the  Supreme  Being. 

"September  7.  ...  In  -the  first  treatise,  I  showed  that 
now  is  the  time  to  explore  Nature  from  her  effects. 

"  September  1 8.  I  was  in  the  Palais  and  the  garden  be- 
longing to  it ;  in  the  Place  Royale  de  Louis  le  Grand,  and 
in  the  churches  of  the  Capuchins  (Franciscans)  and  of  the 
Feuillants  (Cistercians)  on  both  sides  of  them ;  likewise  in 
the  Tuilleries,  from  which  one  enters  the  Louvre ;  also  in  the 
Comedie  des  Italiens.  I  had  a  discussion  also  with  an  abbe" 
on  the  adoration  of  saints.  He  denied  in  toto  that  this  was 
adoration,  and  insisted  that  worship  belonged  to  God  alone ; 
[he  was  opposed]  to  the  adoration  or  veneration  of  the 
saints,  and  to  the  double  veneration  of  Mary." 

Numerous  observations  of  things  that  interested  him  were 
recorded  in  this  year,  1 736,  but  very  few  in  the  following  year, 
when  he  was  busy  with  his  studies.  In  March,  1738,  he  re- 
sumed his  journal  of  travel,  setting  out  through  Burgundy  for 
Italy.  Arriving  at  Venice  in  April  he  remained  there  at  work, 
no  doubt  in  anatomical  studies,  until  August.  Passing  August 
and  September  in  Padua,  Verona,  Florence,  Leghorn,  and 
Pisa,  he  reached  Rome  September  25th,  where  he  found 
abundant  objects  of  interest,  many  of  which  he  described  at 
length.  In  the  middle  of  February,  1739,  he  went  again  to 
Florence.  In  the  middle  of  March  he  was  at  Genoa,  admir- 


IO8  TWENTY   YEARS'  LABOR. 

ing  the  early  bloom  and  the  ripe  oranges,  lemons,  and  olives. 
Here  his  journal  is  interrupted,  but  from  a  letter  addressed 
to  him  by  his  brother-in-law  it  appears  that  he  arrived  in 
Paris  the  middle  of  May.  A  year  and  a  half  later,  Nov.  3, 
1 740,  we  find  him  just  returned  to  his  seat  in  the  Royal  Col- 
lege of  Mines,  having  published  meanwhile  at  Amsterdam  his 
GEconomia  Regni  Animalis  [the  "  Economy  of  the  Animal 
Kingdom"]  in  five  hundred  and  eighty -two  quarto  pages, 
and  having  brought  home  a  large  volume  of  manuscript  notes, 
under  the  title  of  "Various  Philosophical,  Anatomical,  and 
Itinerary  Matters,"  a  portion  of  which  have  since  been 
printed.  In  these  works  we  find  Swedenborg's  mind  under- 
going portentous  development.  From  a  devotee  of  practical 
science,  he  is  now  becoming  a  master  in  philosophy.  From 
delving  in  mines,  constructing  forges  and  furnaces,  and 
settling  disputes  among  miners,  we  find  him  pressing  up 
the  avenues  that  lead  to  the  soul,  constructing  philosophic 
methods,  and  resolving  in  new  ways  the  great  mysteries  of 
existence. 

This  development  cannot  surprise  us,  in  view  of  the  strong 
tendency  shown  from  his  youth  to  philosophize  and  seek  the 
hidden  causes  of  things,  and  in  consideration  of  the  rightful 
tendency  of  maturing  thought  to  seek  what  is  higher  and 
more  essential.  What  most  surprises  us  is  that  Swedenborg 
himself  should  have  been  so  unconscious  that  his  new  direc- 
tion of  thought  was  in  the  line  of  permanence  ;  that  he  should 
have  regarded  it  as  an  episode,  though  one  of  supreme  ur- 
gency, from  which  he  would  soon  return  to  his  legitimate 
field  of  metallurgic  science.  But  this  all  goes  to  show,  what 
he  saw  later,  that  he  was  being  prepared  from  youth  for  a 
work  which  he  did  not  foresee,  by  a  Power  of  which  he  saw 
but  the  shadow,  after  it  had  passed  by. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

PHILOSOPHICAL   STUDIES. 

LET  us  bestow  a  little  consideration  on  the  part  given  to 
Philosophy  in  the  order  of  the  Divine  Providence.  The 
simple,  perfect  relation  of  God  to  man  is  best  exemplified  in 
that  of  the  father  to  the  child.  Such  was  it  at  the  beginning, 
when  mankind  was  in  its  cradle.  Such,  we  are  assured,  it 
must  be  again  with  us,  before  we  can  enter  into  our  Father's 
kingdom.  In  this  relation  what  God  loves  man  to  do,  that 
man  loves  to  do  ;  and  there  is  perfect  conjunction.  But  this 
involves  free-will  implanted  in  man, — without  which  there 
could  be  no  reciprocity  and  no  conjunction.  Will,  again,  re- 
quires an  understanding,  for  the  ventilation  and  purification 
of  its  motive,  as  the  heart  requires  lungs.  As  the  will  is  freej 
so  the  understanding  also  is  free.  As,  however,  the  heart  is 
closed  to  all  but  its  own  life-blood,  so  the  will  is  closed  to  all 
but  its  own  cherished  motive  :  while,  as  the  lungs  are  open 
to  every  breath,  from  whatever  quarter,  so  the  understanding 
is  open  to  thoughts  from  every  source ;  and  as  in  the  lungs 
the  blood  has  the  opportunity  to  select  whatever  it  wants 
from  the  air  inhaled,  and  to  part  with  whatever  it  would  be 
rid  of,  so  in  the  understanding  the  motive  of  the  will  may 
be  refreshed  and  purified. 

While  the  will  is  satisfied  in  infantile  simplicity  to  receive 
its  motive  from  the  parent  Divine  will,  the  understanding  is 
equally  satisfied  with  the  wisdom  that  makes  one  with  it  and 
flows  concordantly  with  it  from  its  Divine  origin.  But  when 
the  will  seeks  the  indulgence  of  a  motive  of  its  own,  it  impels 
the  understanding  to  seek  ideas  that  favor  the  motive ;  and 
both  the  one  and  the  other  stray  wild.  What  now  does  the 


I1O  PHILOSOPHICAL  STUDIES. 

Divine  Providence?  It  cannot  force  the  will;  that  would 
destroy  its  freedom.  It  does  not  force  the  understanding ; 
but  it  places  before  it  instruction,  evidence,  from  which  it 
may  conclude  what  is  right,  what  is  good,  what  is  expedient 
to  will  and  to  do.  Thereby  in  time  is  born  successively  a 
sense  of  necessity,  a  sense  of  expediency,  a  sense  of  duty ; 
and  then  a  willingness,  increasing  to  desire,  to  control  the 
natural  will,  and  in  the  end  to  accept  again  in  its  place  the 
Divine  will.  Thus  the  child  becomes  a  youth,  a  man,  and 
again  a  child  of  the  Kingdom.  Thus  the  human  race  has 
been  infant,  child,  boy,  and  is  now  man  in  the  midst  of  his 
struggle ;  learning  by  now  bitter  now  happy  experience,  by 
philosophy  and  by  revelation,  the  necessity  and  the  eventual 
happiness  of  becoming  child  again. 

For  the  instruction  of  His  people  through  'this  long  wan- 
dering, God  gives  them  a  perfect  Revelation  of  Himself,  His 
Love,  His  Wisdom,  and  His  mighty  works,  first  in  the  visible 
universe, —  Nature  ;  then  from  time  to  time  in  their  own  lan- 
guage, as  they  are  able  to  understand, — written  Revelation ; 
and  lastly  in  their  own  form  and  life, —  the  Incarnation  :  all 
to  serve  in  leading  and  guiding  them  to  knowledge  of  Him, 
to  love  for  Him,  and  to  a  life  in  harmony  and  conjunction 
with  His  life.  Now  the  true  purpose  of  Science  and  of  Phi- 
losophy, the  end  of  ends,  is  to  unfold  these  revelations,  be- 
ginning with  that  of  Nature,  and  to  discover  in  them  the 
mysteries  of  the  Divine  nature,  of  human  nature,  and  of  their 
true  conjunction.  It  is  Science  that  gathers  materials,  obser- 
vations and  experiments.  It  is  Philosophy  that  seeks  their 
hidden  cause  and  connection,  and  searches  for  their  Divine 
purpose.  It  is  practice  in  both  that  trains  the  mind  to  appre- 
ciate the  relations  of  things,  and  to  understand  the  secrets  of 
the  Divine  Providence ;  and  all  to  the  end  that  the  heart 
may  be  brought  back  to  love  for  its  Maker,  and  to  willing- 
ness to  receive  His  will  in  place  of  its  own,  with  the  firm 
support  of  the  mind's  conviction  that  this  is  the  highest 
possible  good. 


GREEK   PHILOSOPHY.  m 

The  first  philosophic  training  of  the  mind  within  the  com- 
pass of  our  civilization  was  brought  about  in  Greece,  begin- 
ning some  six  hundred  years  before  the  era  when  God  in  His 
Wisdom  was  to  be  made  flesh,  and  to  live  among  us  the  life 
designed  for  us, —  the  true  human  life.  History  shows  un- 
mistakably the  purpose  and  the  service  of  this  philosophic 
training,  in  the  reception  of  the  Gospel.  Without  this  train- 
ing Christianity  could  hardly  have  obtained  a  foothold  in  the 
world.1  There  was  no  resting-place  for  it  among  the  Jews, 
who  crucified  their  Messiah.  There  could  be  none  among 
the  idolatrous  savages,  till  these  were  subdued  by  the  more 
civilized  Greeks  and  Romans.  Among  the  Greeks  and  Ro- 
mans it  found  a  place  solely  by  means  of  the  philosophic 
training  which,  beginning  with  Thales, — with  the  notion  of  a 
simple  original  element  of  all  substances,  assumed  to  be  water, 
and  passing  through  a  dozen  schools,  each  of  which  seized  on 
some  peculiar  phase  of  existence, —  came  at  last  to  the  emi- 
nently reasonable,  almost  Christian  views  of  Socrates,  Plato, 
and  Aristotle ;  views  to  which  the  successive  schools  of 
Philosophy  are  continually  recurring,  even  to  this  day. 

Nothing  more  wonderful  than  the  theosophic  and  philo- 
sophic development  of  those  three  centuries,  from  600  to 
300  B.  c.,  is  recorded  in  history.  It  was  the  development  of 
human  reason,  but  inspired,  we  know  not  how  far,  by  ancient 
Revelation,  and  provided  by  the  Lord,  in  preparation  for  the 
reception  of  His  Gospel.  Of  the  remaining  three  centuries 
there  is  little  to  be  said  in  point  of  philosophic  progress. 
While  the  noble  systems  already  elaborated  were  slowly  per- 
meating the  masses,  other  systems  arose  of  less  importance, 
but  with  two  effective  ends, — the  one  inculcating  morality  as 
the  chief  good,  the  other  sceptical,  setting  men's  minds 
free  from  old  traditions ;  in  this  respect  bearing  remarkable 

1  It  may  even  be  questioned  whether  without  it  could  have  been  written  the 
Gospel  of  John,  "  the  Heart  of  Christ."  For  though  the  truth  of  the  Word 
is  Divine,  it  can  be  dictated  to  men  and  written  by  them  only  in  words  and 
thoughts  familiar  to  them.  And  John  did  not,  it  is  supposed,  write  his  Gos- 
pel till  after  many  years'  experience  in  teaching  it  to  the  Greek  mind. 


112  PHILOSOPHICAL  STUDIES. 

analogy  to  the  current  systems  in  what  Schwegler  calls  the 
"clearing  up"  period  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

And  the  LOGOS  was  made  flesh  and  dwelt  among  us.  By 
this  we  understand  that  God  revealed  the  Wisdom  of  His 
own  Love  in  human  form  and  life,  that  therein  man  might 
learn  so  much  of  his  Maker  as  he  can  comprehend,  and  be- 
hold a  Divine  example  of  the  perfect  humanity  for  which  he  is 
himself  created.  For,  in  the  humanity, —  of  power  as  its  own, 
though  really  received  from  the  Divine  Power, —  our  Lord, 
in  obedience  to  the  Divine  commands,  resisted  and  overcame 
the  human  will,  and  accepted  the  Divine  will  in  its  place  ;  just 
as  He  now  labors  with  us  to  help  us  do.  It  is  only  by  study 
of  the  example  thus  given  of  perfect  manhood,  that  we  can 
follow  in  His  footsteps,  accept  His  salvation,  and  approximate 
the  life  for  which  we  are  designed.  The  sublimest  feature  of 
the  life  thus  presented  us  is  its  perfect  faith  in  the  Divine 
will,  and  its  acceptance  of  it  in  place  of  the  natural  human 
will.  This  faith,  then,  is  our  highest  aspiration.  But  it  is  not 
given  to  all  alike.  To  Thomas  it  was  given  to  believe  after 
he  had  seen ;  but  they  were  called  blessed  who  had  not  seen, 
and  yet  had  believed.  There  were  twelve,  a  full  number,  of 
disciples  ;  and  Thomas  was  one  of  them.  So  were  there  twelve 
tribes  of  Israel,  and  twelve  times  twelve  thousand  sealed  for 
their  Lord's  kingdom ;  because  this  kingdom  is  for  all  who 
will  believe,  whether  by  the  intuitive  faith  of  love  or  by  the 
slow  conviction  of  reluctant  reason.  For,  in  truth,  our  Lord 
fulfilled  the  Divine  Word  in  all  degrees  of  His  humanity; 
natural  reason  and  even  corporeal  sense  He  subjected  to  the 
Divine  will,  reducing  them  all  to  its  service,  to  the  end  that 
wherever  we  are,  there  He  may  be  found,  Maker  and  Re- 
deemer, God-with-us.  And  indeed  what  is  true  of  the  whole 
together,  is  true  in  a  measure  of  each  one  in  particular.  As 
the  whole  kingdom  of  our  Lord  embraces  all  phases  of  faith, 
from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  and  as  He  Himself  made  all 
these  phases  full  and  perfect  in  Himself,  so  in  each  one  of  us, 
all  the  phases  need  to  be  represented,  in  potentiality  or  possi- 


STAGES   OF   THE  CHURCH.  113 

bility,  if  not  in  actuality.  In  other  words,  no  phase  alone  is 
anywhere  complete  and  enduring  except  by  the  real  or  possi- 
ble support  of  all  other  phases.  With  this  in  mind,  we  shall 
be  helped  to  understand  the  phases  we  find  in  the  history  of 
the  Christian  Church. 

Comte,  followed  by  John  Stuart  Mill,  recognizes  in  every 
development  three  stages, — the  theological,  the  metaphysical, 
and  the  positive;  or,  as  called  by  Mill,  the  volitional,  the 
abstractional,  and  the  experiential.  The  first  of  these  they 
call  spontaneous  and  primitive,  the  second  transitional,  and 
the  third  final. 

Fichte  finds  five  periods :  "  I.  The  domination  of  In- 
stinct over  Reason :  this  is  the  primitive  age.  II.  The 
general  instinct  gives  place  to  an  external  dominant  Au- 
thority :  this  is  the  age  of  doctrines  unable  to  convince,  and 
employing  force  to  produce  a  blind  belief,  claiming  un- 
limited obedience ;  this  is  the  period  in  which  evil  arises. 
III.  The  Authority,  dominant  in  the  preceding  epoch,  but 
constantly  attacked  by  Reason,  becomes  weak  and  wavering  : 
this  is  the  epoch  of  scepticism  and  licentiousness.  IV.  Rea- 
son becomes  conscious  of  itself;  truth  makes  itself  known; 
the  science  of  Reason  develops  itself:  this  is  the  beginning 
of  that  perfection  which  Humanity  is  destined  to  attain.  V. 
The  science  of  Reason  is  applied ;  Humanity  fashions  itself 
after  the  ideal  standard  of  Reason  :  this  is  the  epoch  of  Art, 
the  last  term  in  the  history  of  our  species."  l 

The  defect  of  both  these  schemes  is  that  they  do  not  com- 
prehend the  high  end  for  which  all  that  they  include  is  but  the 
preparation.  They  do  not  look  to  the  Divine-Human  type. 
They  leave  man  but  a  reasoning  animal,  serving  himself  and 
not  God,  living  his  own  life  and  not  the  Divine.  Yet  they 
are  of  interest  as  declaring  the  limit  to  which  merely  human 
speculation  can  reach,  as  themselves  are  the  limit  of  the 
period  of  sensual  reason  to  which  they  belong, — sensual  rea- 
son in  its  two  aspects  :  the  one  material,  positive ;  the  other 

1  LEWES:  History  of  Philosophy,  ii.  375. 
8 


114  PHILOSOPHICAL  STUDIES. 

intellectual,  ideal ;  but  both  appealing  solely  to  consciousness, 
or  sense,  either  physical  or  intellectual.  With  the  heart  and 
its  interior  perception  they  have  nothing  to  do.  And  yet  how 
impotent  is  mere  intellectual  reasoning  to  satisfy  the  longing 
of  the  soul,  we  have  learned  from  one  of  its  greatest  masters  : 
" '  Lord,  I  believe  :  help  Thou  mine  unbelief ! '  Philosoph- 
ical argument,  especially  that  drawn  from  the  vastness  of 
the  universe  in  comparison  with  the  insignificance  of  this 
Globe,  has  sometimes  shaken  my  reason  for  the  faith  that  is 
in  me ;  but  my  heart  has  assured  and  reassured  me  that  the 
Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  must  be  a  Divine  Reality.  The 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  cannot  be  a  merely  human  produc- 
tion. This  belief  enters  into  the  very  depth  of  my  con- 
science. The  whole  history  of  man  proves  it."  * 

Faith,  which  alone  can  satisfy  the  soul,  was  in  the  first  age 
of  the  Christian  Church  instinctive  faith.  The  faith  of  the 
Apostles  was  childlike,  inspired  by  the  sight  and  hearing  of 
their  Master,  and  by  being  fed  at  His  hands.  It  was  good, 
but  it  was  not  communicable  to  all ;  it  was  not  enduring  ;  it 
had  not  an  ultimate  foundation  in  human  reason,  whereby 
to  withstand  the  assaults  of  the  enemy.  It  was  not  a  mis- 
carriage of  the  Divine  purpose  that  this  faith  came  to  grief 
in  failure  and  perversion.  This  end  was  foretold  to  Peter, 
who  was  its  representative  :  "  When  thou  shalt  be  old,  thou 
shalt  stretch  forth  thy  hands,  and  another  shall  gird  thee  and 
carry  thee  whither  thou  wouldst  not"  (John  xxi.  18). 

The  faith  of  childhood  must  fail,  in  contact  with  the  world's 
temptations,  and  must  give  place  to  the  faith  of  manhood, 
bom  in  its  vastation.  The  insufficiency  must  be  learned  of 
faith  inspired  by  hope  and  fear ;  and  the  foundations  of  an 
enduring  faith,  based  on  intelligent  choice  of  the  good  and 
the  true,  must  be  laid  in  the  grounds  of  even  sensual  reason. 
The  child  must  go  to  school,  and  learn  first  from  masters. 
The  age  of  infancy  passed,  as  Fichte  says,  into  a  stage  of 
"external  dominant  authority,"  an  "age  of  doctrines  un- 
1  DANIEL  WEBSTER  :  for  his  tombstone. 


STAGE  OF  OBEDIENCE.  1 1  5 

able  to  convince,  and  employing  force  to  produce  a  blind 
belief,  claiming  unlimited  obedience,"  a  "period  in  which 
Evil  arises." 1 

We  need  not  lament  this  tyranny,  under  which  the  slaves  of 
Rome  and  the  half-civilized  tribes  of  the  North  first  learned 
their  letters  and  their  catechism.  It  was  of  Providence,  and 
in  due  order  of  progress,  that  these  were  well  learned  and 
became  a  guiding  power  in  the  mind,  before  Reason  began 
its  struggle  for  birth  and  liberty.  It  was  not,  however,  until 
the  ninth  century,  when  Charlemagne  established  schools 
among  a  people  born  for  the  exercise  of  the  reasoning  faculty, 
—  himself  the  first  pupil, —  that  even  this  school-boy  knowl- 
edge was  made  the  people's  own.2  No  printed  books  as  yet : 
the  instruction  was  oral,  and  disputations  were  instituted ;  the 
learner  was  encouraged  to  ask  why  and  wherefore.  Priests 
were  still  the  teachers,  the  topics  dogmas;  and  the  whole 
force  of  the  developing  reason  was  applied  to  sustain  the 
dogmas.  But  the  very  effort  invited  question ;  the  Church 
at  Rome  took  alarm,  and  thereafter  endeavored  to  suppress 
discussion. 

Happily,  though  it  assumed  to  be  His  vicegerent,  the 
Church  did  not  compass  all  the  Lord's  counsels  nor  control 
His  world.  Before  His  coming  in  the  flesh,  as  we  have  seen, 
He  had  laid  the  foundations  of  the  philosophy  that  was  to 
accept  Him  when  it  should  be  duly  informed  and  chastened. 
Of  His  Providence  this  philosophy,  when  banished  by  the 
growing  dogmatism  of  the  Church,  had  found  refuge  in  the 
East ;  and  now,  when  the  nations  were  prepared  for  its  Chris- 
tian absorption  and  development,  it  was  brought  back  into 
Europe  by  the  Egyptian,  the  Assyrian,  and  the  Jew.  The 
old  Greek  philosophy,  enriched  in  the  courts  of  Syria  and 

*  Appendix  VIIL 

2  It  is  of  interest  that  from  the  free  soil  of  England,  where  the  Venerable 
Bede  had  already  labored  to  make  the  Scriptures  known  to  the  people,  came 
Charlemagne's  teacher  and  Bede's  pupil,  Alcuin.  Bede  and  Alcuin  were  em- 
phatically the  teachers  of  the  people,  not  only  in  the  Scriptures,  but  in  all  the 
knowledge  of  the  time. 


Il6  PHILOSOPHICAL  STUDIES. 

Persia,  whither  it  had  fled  for  shelter,  was  brought  back  by 
the  Mahometans  into  Spain;  and  in  Andalusia  the  Arab, 
the  Persian,  the  Copt,  the  Jew,  and  the  Christian  studied  to- 
gether in  peace.1  Thence  by  the  trading  Jew  the  Arabian 
philosophy,  as  it  is  called,  was  carried  all  over  Europe  to  the 
starving  Christian  students.  So  of  old  the  Lord  sent  ravens 
to  feed  His  prophet  with  food  that  His  people  denied  him. 
It  is  beautiful  to  see  how  the  remnants  of  former  Churches 
were  made  instrumental  in  providing,  within  the  Christian 
Church,  the  foundations  of  the  new  Church  that  is  to  be 
the  crown  of  all,  and  the  tabernacle  of  God  with  men. 

This  was  in  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries.  In  the 
thirteenth,  while  the  Church  of  Rome  was  making  confession 
obligatory,  and  forbidding  to  the  laity  the  use  of  the  Sacred 
Scriptures  in  their  own  tongue,2  Roger  Bacon,  true  prophet 
of  the  age  to  come,  spoke  out  boldly  for  the  free  search  after 
truth  under  the  light  of  the  Scriptures,  of  mathematics,  and 
of  experiment.  In  the  fourteenth  century  Wycliffe,  prophet 
of  the  Reformation  in  religion,  as  Roger  Bacon  was  of  that 
in  philosophy,  denounced  the  Pope  as  Antichrist,  and  laid  the 
foundation  for  Protestantism  in  the  North,  at  the  same  time 
that  the  Southern  heart  was  expressing  in  painting  and  song 
its  yearning  for  a  more  direct  communication  with  its  Lord 
than  could  be  had  through  the  priesthood.  In  the  fifteenth 
century  the  bold  work  went  on,  Reason  forging  and  burnish- 
ing its  weapons  for  the  coming  struggle,  while  Rome  was 

1  In  the  nth  century  there  were  in  Mahometan  Spain  seventy  public  libraries 
and  colleges  in  all  the  principal  cities,  the  professors  being  munificently  com- 
pensated.   "  Mahometanism,  like  Judaism,  claimed  all  for  God.     It  allowed 
no  separation  between  the  secular  and  the  sacred  ;    for  the  earth  was  the 
Lord's  and  the  fulness  thereof,  and  His  sovereignty  over  all  made  all  things 
sacred.   It  had  no  fear  of  knowledge,  of  science,  of  philosophy, —  these  were  the 
avenues  to  self-humiliation,  and  self-humiliation  was  its  goal." — Rev.  GEORGE 
MATHESON  :  Gro-wth  of  the  Spirit  of  Christianity,  ii.  94. 

2  As  early  as  the  5th  century  the  common  study  of  the  Sacred  Scriptures  had 
been  decried  in  the  Church  ;  but  the  first  actual  prohibition  of  their  possession 
by  the  laity  was  enacted  by  the  Synod  of  Toulouse  in  1229.     The  Psalter  was 
excepted,  but  not  in  the  language  of  the  people. 


rS. 

THE  \ 


UN> 


DEVELOPMENT  OF   REASON.  117 

blindly  ministering  to  her  luxury  with  Greek  culture,  now 
driven  from  Constantinople  by  the  Turks,  and  sending  her 
merchants  for  gold  and  silver  even  to  the  New  World,  which 
Providence  had  reserved  for  the  home  of  free  thought.  In 
the^sixteenth  century  came  the  outbreak,  and  with  it  the 
use  of  the  printing-press  for  the  interchange  of  ideas. 

In  the  seventeenth  century,  while  a  Swedish  King  saved 
Protestantism  in  Northern  Europe,  and  our  forefathers  were 
fleeing  to  the  savage  shores  of  America  for  greater  freedom  of 
worship  ;  while  at  Rome  Giordano  Bruno  was  being  burned 
at  the  stake  for  declaring  his  belief  in  more  worlds  than  one, 
and  Galileo  was  confined  in  a  dungeon  for  denying  that  this 
earth  is  the  centre  of  the  universe,  —  two  powerful  thinkers 
were  trenching  wide  and  deep,  in  different  directions,  for  the 
exercise  of  human  reason.  Francis  Bacon  laid  open  to  eager 
view  the  happy  results,  intellectual  and  material,  that  would 
follow  from  the  pursuit  of  science  and  philosophy  by  induction, 
or  by  collating  particular  observations  and  being  led  by  them 
into  general  laws.  Descartes,  on  the  other  hand,  seizing 
upon  the  consciousness  of  one's  own  existence  as  a  starting- 
point,  using  intellectual  instead  of  physical  sense  as  his  cri- 
terion of  existence,  established  a  system  of  idealism,  or  meta- 
physics, depending  on  deduction  from  generals  to  particulars. 
The  century  thus  opened  was  immensely  fruitful  of  scientific 
observations,  and  at  the  same  time  of  both  idealistic  and 
realistic,  or  materialistic,  thought.  It  was  the  age  of  Spinoza 
and  Leibnitz,  of  Hobbes  and  Locke,  who  were  closely  fol- 
lowed in  the  next  century  by  Berkeley  and  Hume,  Condillac 
and  Hartley,  Christian  Wolff  and  Immanuel  Kant. 

To  measure  our  indebtedness  to  these  great  explorers  of 
the  powers,  the  routes,  and  the  limits  of  human  reason  by  the 
degree  in  which  we  now  follow  in  their  footsteps,  would  be  as 
great  an  injustice  as  to  measure  our  indebtedness  to  Colum- 
bus, Cabot,  and  Raleigh,  by  the  degree  in  which  we  follow 
their  routes  and  charts  of  the  New  World.  They  were 
pioneers  on  different  lines  of  exploration  whose  monuments 


Il8  PHILOSOPHICAL  STUDIES. 

are  of  lasting  service,  whether  to  warn  or  to  beckon  us  on. 
Even  when  they  discover  but  negative  results,  we  find  them 
all  to  be  earnest,  God-fearing  men,  paying  their  tribute  to 
His  infinity,  in  the  confession  of  human  inability  to  fathom 
its  nature  and  its  operation  in  man.1  Scarce  one  of  them  but 
has  confessed  that  the  one  thing  of  which  man  is  most  sure, 
beyond  the  fact  of  his  own  existence,  is  the  existence  of  an 
Infinite  Being.  But  what  the  Infinite  is,  and  how  related  to 
the  finite, —  questions  involving  the  nature  and  responsibility 
of  the  soul, — no  one  of  them  was  able  to  show  in  a  manner  to 
satisfy  even  his  own  generation.  On  the  one  hand  reason 
tended  to  make  all  nature,  even  human  actions,  the  direct 
outcome  and  manifestation  of  the  Deity.  On  the  other  hand 
reason  tended  to  ignore  all  cognitions  but  the  impressions  of 
sense,  attributable  to  physical  causes. 

"  The  grand  secrets  of  Necessity  and  Free-will,  of  the  mind's  vital  or 
non-vital  dependence  on  Matter,  of  our  mysterious  relations  to  Time 
and  Space,  to  God,  to  the  Universe,  are  not,  in  the  faintest  degree, 
touched  on  in  these  inquiries;  and  seem  not  to  have  the  smallest 
connection  with  them.  .  .  .  Locke,  himself  a  clear,  humble-minded, 
patient,  reverent,  nay,  religious  man,  had  paved  the  way  for  banishing 
religion  from  the  world.  Mind,  by  being  modelled  in  men's  imagina- 
tions into  a  shape,  a  visibility,  ....  began  to  lose  its  immaterial,  mys- 
terious, Divine  though  invisible  character :  it  was  tacitly  figured  as 
something  that  might,  were  our  organs  fine  enough,  be*  seen.  Yet  who 
had  ever  seen  it  ?  Who  could  ever  see  it  ?  Thus  by  degrees  it  passed 
into  a  doubt,  a  relation,  some  faint  possibility;  and  at  last  into  a 
highly  probable  nonentity.  Following  Locke's  footsteps,  the  French 
had  discovered  that  'as  the  stomach  secretes  chyle,  so  does  the  brain 
secrete  thought.'  And  what  then  was  religion,  what  was  poetry,  what 
was  all  high  and  heroic  feeling  ?  Chiefly  a  delusion ;  often  a  false  and 
pernicious  one.  ...  In  the  eyes  of  Voltaire  and  his  disciples,  Religion 
was  a  superfluity,  indeed  a  nuisance." 

So  says  Carlyle  of  this  latter  and  prevailing  tendency,  in 
his  essay  on  the  Signs  of  the  Times, —  The  Latter  Half  of  the 

1  Even  "  David  Hume,  although  a  sceptic  from  his  youth,  was  never  an  ab- 
solute unbeliever.  He  did  not  reject  religion,  natural  or  revealed,  but  he  con- 
sidered human  reason  to  be  incapable  of  forming  any  definite  opinions  on  the 
subject." — Rev.  JOHN  SINCLAIR:  Old  Times  and  Distant  Places •,  p.  167. 


LIMITS  OF   REASON.  119 

Eighteenth  Century^  Mr.  Lewes  says  of  the  dominant 
systems, — 

"  The  germinal  error  of  Descartes  was  developed  by  Spinoza  into  a 
system  from  which  Philosophy  shrank  back  appalled. 

"The  germinal  error  of  Locke  was  developed  by  Berkeley  and 
Hume  into  systems  equally  repugnant  to  common-sense. 

"  The  germinal  error  of  Condillac  was  developed  by  the  Sensational 
School,  and  received  its  logical  expression  in  Destutt  de  Tracy :  and 
Philosophy  in  alarm  once  more  threw  herself  into  the  arms  of  the 
theological  party."2 

The  limits  to  natural  reason  thus  developed,  and  the  fact 
of  an  inner,  truer  perception  superior  to  natural  reason's  laws, 
none  have  seen  more  clearly  than  the  great  philosophers 
themselves.  Thus  Locke  says,  in  his  well-known  Essay  y — 

"  It  is  plain  to  me  that  we  have  a  more  certain  knowledge  of  the 
existence  of  a  God  than  of  anything  our  senses  have  not  immediately 
discovered  to  us.  Nay,  I  presume  I  may  say  that  we  may  more  cer- 
tainly know  that  there  is  a  God  than  that  there  is  anything  else  with- 
out us"  (book  iv.  c.  10). 

Kant's  results,  as  summed  up  by  Lewes,  are  these  :  — 

"  The  attempt  to  demonstrate  the  existence  of  God  is  an  impossible 
attempt.  Reason  is  utterly  incompetent  to  the  task.  The  attempt  to 
penetrate  the  essence  of  things  —  to  know  things  per  se  —  to  know 
noumena  —  is  also  an  impossible  attempt.  And  yet  that  God  exists, 
that  the  World  exists,  are  irresistible  convictions.  There  is  another 
certitude,  therefore,  besides  that  derived  from  demonstration,  and  this 
is  moral  certitude,  which  is  grounded  upon  belief.  I  cannot  say,  '  It  is 
morally  certain  that  God  exists,'  but  I  must  say,  '  I  am  morally  certain 
that  God  exists.'  "  3 

This  limitation  by  Kant  of  the  domain  of  pure  reason  has 

1  Mr.  Carlyle  appreciated  the  contrast  to  the  times  found  in  Swedenborg. 
In  a  letter  to  a  lady,  in  1852,  he  said,  "  I  have  made  some  personal  acquaint- 
ance with  the  man,  read  several  of  his  books,  what  biographies  of  him  could  be 
heard  of,  and  have  reflected  for  myself  on  the  singular  appearance  he  makes  in 
this  world,  and  the  notable  message  he  was  sent  to  deliver  to  his  fellow-creatures 
in  that  epoch.  A  man  of  great  and  indisputable  cultivation,  strong  mathemati- 
cal intellect,  and  the  most  pious,  seraphic  turn  of  mind, —  a  man  beautiful,  lov- 
able, and  tragical  to  me,  with  many  thoughts  in  him,  which,  when  I  interpret 
them  for  myself,  I  find  to  belong  to  the  high  and  perennial  in  human  thought" 
2  LEWES:  Op.  cit.  ii.  383.  3  Ibid.  518. 


.I2O  PHILOSOPHICAL  STUDIES. 

never  been  confuted.     In  his   own  words,   as  quoted  by 
Bolton, — 

"  The  result  of  all  the  dialectic  attempts  of  pure  Reason  not  only 
confirms  the  truth  of  what  we  have  already  proved  in  our  tran- 
scendental analytic, —  namely,  that  all  inferences  which  would  lead  us 
beyond  the  limits  of  experience  are  fallacious  and  groundless, —  but  it 
at  the  same  time  teaches  us  this  important  lesson,  that  human  reason 
has  a  natural  inclination  to  overstep  these  limits."  1 

While  now  on  the  one  hand  human  reason  was  being 
brought  to  this  humble  confession  of  its  own  impotence  in 
relation  to  Divine  things,  and  was  thus  being  prepared  to 
accept  intelligently  the  Divine  guidance  and  instruction,  on 
the  other  hand,  with  too  large  a  proportion  of  men,  it  ran 
riot  in  its  negative  results,  declaring  that  there  was  no  God, 
no  immortality,  and  no  morality  but  that  of  enlightened 
selfishness.  The  culmination  of  this  insanity  was  seen  in 
the  excesses  of  the  French  Revolution,  when  the  Bible  was 
burned,  and  Reason  was  enshrined  in  the  temples  as  the  only 
God ;  when  priests  declared  there  was  no  other,  and  guillotines 
were  erected  in  "almost  every  town  and  village"  for  those 
who  failed  to  fall  down  and  worship  the  idol.  Such  is  natural 
reason  when  seeking  only  its  own  guidance,  and  in  reality 
impelled  by  the  Evil  One. 

But  while  Voltaire  gathered  in  England  deistical  argument 
and  sceptical  sneers  at  Christianity,  Swedenborg  gathered 
there  Christian  hope  and  materials  for  Christian  philosophical 
argument.  Newton  was  his  first  study  on  arriving  in  London ; 
and  Newton,  while  tracing  the  laws  by  which  not  an  apple 
falleth  but  by  the  same  Hand  that  holdeth  the  planets  in  their 
courses,  was  devoutly  studying  also  written  Revelation,  seek- 
ing to  trace  in  the  befallings  of  the  centuries  the  fulfilment  of 
the  Divine  predictions  of  the  Apocalypse,  and  pointing  out  the 
error  of  those  who  veiled  the  One  God  with  the  mist  of  Tri- 
personality.  It  was  not,  however,  by  these  studies  of  New- 

1  BOLTON:  Inquisitio  Philos.  p.  no.  Kant  claims,  however,  that  Reason 
in  transcending  its  proper  field,  though  it  can  do  nothing  in  forming  definite 
conceptions,  can  do  much  in  establishing  guiding  ideas. 


SWEDENBORG'S   METHOD.  121 

ton,  which  his  friends  would  not  suffer  him  to  publish,  that 
Swedenborg's  thoughts  were  directed  to  the  same  subjects ; 
and  we  refer  to  them  only  as  evincing  the  gravitation  of  the 
true  philosophic  thought  of  the  times  in  the  same  direction. 
But,  for  the  force  of  the  gravitation,  let  us  think  of  the 
influence  of  the  Sun  of  heaven  to  draw  all  to  Itself. 

We  shall  see  the  direction  in  which  Swedenborg's  philo- 
sophic studies  were  led,  entered  upon  with  entire  submission 
to  Revelation  and  under  the  earnestly  sought  guidance  of  the 
Divine  Spirit,  ueven  the  Spirit  of  Truth,  whom  the  world 
cannot  receive,  because  it  seeth  Him  not,  neither  knoweth 
Him  ;  but  ye  know  Him,  for  He  dwelleth  with  you  and  shall 
be  in  you"  (John  xiv.  17).  For  it  is  only  to  our  Lord's  own 
disciples,  who  see  in  Him  the  Infinite  dwelling  in  the  finite, 
the  Divine  in  the  human,  that  the  perception  of  interior 
truth,  of  spiritual  philosophy,  can  be  given. 

It  was  in  the  height  of  deistical  speculation,  of  Reason's 
rejection  of  Revelation  and  endeavor  to  find  God  for  itself, 
that  Swedenborg  had  devoted  twenty  years  to  the  study  of 
the  nature  and  causes  of  the  world,  with  all  the  aid  of  existing 
philosophy.  Let  us  see  the  result ;  and  first  his  method,  as 
announced  in  the  opening  sentences  of  his  Prindpia :  — 

"  If  the  mind  be  well  connected  with  the  organs  of  the 
senses,  or,  in  other  words,  if  man  be  truly  rational,  he  is  per- 
petually aspiring  after  wisdom.  The  soul  is  in  the  desire  of 
being  instructed  by  the  senses  and  of  continually  exercising 
its  perception  from  them,  as  from  a  source  distinct  from 
itself;  while  the  senses  in  their  turn  desire  to  exercise  their 
perception  from  the  soul,  to  which  they  present  their  several 
objects  for  contemplation.  Thus  each  performs  and  con- 
tributes to  the  same  common  operation,  and  tends  to  one 
ultimate  object,  the  wisdom  of  the  man.  For  this  purpose 
there  exists  a  continual  connection  between  the  soul  and 
body ;  for  this  purpose  also  reason  is  added  to  the  senses, 
and  hence  the  desire  after  wisdom  becomes  the  peculiar  mark 
and  characteristic  of  man :  unless  however  he  desires  and 


122  PHILOSOPHICAL  STUDIES. 

attains  to  a  knowledge  which  lies  beyond  or  above  his  senses, 
he  is  far  from  being  truly  rational,  nor  is  there  a  due  connec- 
tion between  the  senses  and  the  soul.  The  senses  and  their 
various  organs  can  receive  but  grossly,  and  in  an  imperfect 
measure,  the  phenomena  of  the  world.  Now  there  are  no 
animals  beside  man  who  possess  any  knowledge  beyond  that 
of  the  mere  senses,  and  of  their  organs  disposed  in  the  pia 
meninx  of  the  brain.  They  are  unable  to  penetrate  farther ; 
and,  from  want  of  a  more  subtile  and  active  power,  cannot 
refer  the  objects  presented  to  their  senses  to  a  higher  or  more 
distinct  principle.  But  truly  the  wisdom  of  man  cannot  be 
said  to  differ  from  theirs,  if  we  refer  the  objects  or  operations 
of  the  world  upon  our  senses,  not  to  the  soul  and  its  reason, 
but  to  the  same  principle  as  they  do.  The  sign  that  we  are 
willing  to  be  wise  is  the  desire  to  know  the  causes  of  things, 
and  to  investigate  the  secret  and  unknown  operations  of  na- 
ture. It  is  for  this  purpose  that  each  one  consults  the  oracle 
of  the  rational  mind,  and  thence  awaits  his  answer ;  that  is,  he 
is  eager  to  acquire  a  deeper  wisdom  than  merely  that  which 
is  proffered  to  him  through  the  medium  of  the  senses. 

"  But  he  who  wishes  to  attain  the  end  must  wish  likewise 
to  attain  the  means.  Now  the  means  which  more  especially 
conduce  to  a  knowledge  truly  philosophical  are  three  in  num- 
ber :  EXPERIENCE,  GEOMETRY,  and  the  FACULTY  OF  REASONING. 

First,  then,  let  us  ascertain  whether,  and  in  what  manner,  we 
have  the  power  by  these  three  means  to  arrive  at  knowledge 
a  priori,  or  to  reach  in  natural  and  physical  inquiries  the 
farthest  boundaries  of  human  wisdom"  (p.  i).1 

After  showing  in  what  way  these  three  means  conduce  to  a 
philosophical  knowledge  of  all  things  of  this  world,  including 
hidden  elements  and  motions,  Swedenborg  says, — 

"  When,  therefore,  the  philosopher  has  arrived  at  the  end 
of  his  studies,  even  supposing  him  to  have  acquired  so  com- 
plete a  knowledge  of  all  mundane  things  that  nothing  more 

1  The  page  references  to  the  Principia  and  to  other  of  Swedenborg's 
philosophical  works  are  to  the  translations  published  in  London. 


USE  OF   REASON.  123 

remains  for  him  to  learn,  he  must  there  stop ;  for  he  can 
never  know  the  nature  of  the  Infinite  Being,  of  His  Supreme 
Intelligence,  Supreme  Providence,  Supreme  Love,  Supreme 
Justice,  and  other  infinite  attributes.  He  will  therefore 
acknowledge,  that,  in  respect  to  this  supremely  intelligent 
and  wise  Being,  his  knowledge  is  nothing :  he  will  hence 
most  profoundly  venerate  Him  with  the  utmost  devotion  of 
soul ;  so  that  at  the  mere  thought  of  Him  his  whole  frame, 
or  membranous  and  sensitive  system,  will  awfully,  yet  sweetly 
tremble,  from  the  inmost  to  the  outermost  principles  of  its 
being"  (p.  35). 

After  giving  the  rein  to  his  imagination  as  to  the  condition 
of  man  in  his  first  happy  estate,  when,  his  whole  soul  and 
body  being  in  perfect  harmony  with  the  Divine  ends,  he  could 
see  these  ends  in  himself  as  in  a  mirror,  and  all  intelligence 
was  open  to  him,  Swedenborg  returns  to  the  perverted  and 
imperfect  state  of  man  at  the  present  day :  — 

"In  this  state  we  see  that  no  complete  knowledge  of 
anything  can  be  acquired  without  the  use  of  means ;  we  see 
that  nothing  can  penetrate  to  the  ultimate  active  principle, 
or  to  the  soul,  except  by  means  of  continual  experiments, 
by  the  assistance  of  geometry,  and  by  the  faculty  of  reasoning 
to  be  thus  acquired.  .  .  .  Now  corporeal  pleasures,  cupidi- 
ties, desires,  and  vices  of  this  kind  have  almost  filled  the 
whole  man ;  increasing  with  time,  they  pass  from  practice 
into  habit,  and  from  habit  become  completely  spontaneous, 
so  as  to  govern  the  will  itself :  in  other  words,  cupidities  at 
length  take  possession  of  the  will,  and  withdraw  it  from  the 
governance  of  the  reasoning  soul;  so  that  finally  man  is 
capable  of  scarcely  any  voluntary  action  but  what  proceeds 
from  these  emotions  and  desires,  and  is  frequently  without 
the  consciousness  of  his  rational  principle.  ...  As  then 
these  disorderly  emotions  of  the  body  have  occupied  almost 
the  whole  man,  ...  it  is  no  wonder  that  at  this  day  the 
faculty  of  reasoning  is  only  to  be  acquired  through  the  use  of 
means,  and  that  it  is  not  possible  to  arrive  by  reasoning  at 


124  PHILOSOPHICAL  STUDIES. 

the  most  subtile  substance  or  principle,  without  the  aid  of 
analytical  rules,  to  be  taught  us  by  a  master,  similar  to  those 
of  geometry"  (p.  40). 

It  was  in  good  part,  no  doubt,  his  dissatisfaction  with  the 
several  theories  of  cosmogony  advanced  by  Descartes,  Leib- 
nitz, and  Newton,  that  led  Swedenborg  to  grapple  with  the 
subject  in  his  Prindpia;  yet  he  did  not  enter  into  any 
controversy. 

"In  writing  the  present  work,"  he  says,  "I  have  had  no 
aim  at  the  applause  of  the  learned  world,  nor  at  the  acquisi- 
tion of  a  name  or  popularity.  .  .  .  Such  things  are  no  objects 
of  regard  to  any  one  whose  mind  is  bent  only  on  truth  and 
a  true  system  of  philosophy ;  should  it  therefore  happen  that 
I  should  gain  the  assent  or  approbation  of  others,  I  shall 
receive  it  no  otherwise  than  as  a  confirmation  of  my  having 
pursued  the  truth.  I  have  no  wish  to  persuade  others  to  lay 
aside  the  principles  of  the  various  illustrious  and  talented 
authors  who  have  adorned  the  world,  and  in  place  of  their 
principles  to  adopt  my  own  :  for  this  reason  it  is  that  I  have 
not  made  mention  of  so  much  as  one  of  them,  or  even  hinted 
at  his  name,  lest  I  should  injure  his  feelings,  or  seem  to  im- 
pugn his  sentiments,  or  derogate  from  the  praise  which  others 
bestow  upon  him.  If  the  principles  I  have  advanced  have 
more  of  truth  in  them  than  those  which  are  advocated  by 
others  ;  if  they  are  truly  philosophical  and  accordant  with  the 
phenomena  of  nature, — the  assent  of  the  public  will  follow 
in  due  time  of  its  own  accord.  .  .  .  Truth  is  but  one  and  will 
speak  for  itself"  (ii.  365). 

At  the  conclusion,  however,  of  the  Prindpia,  p.  366,  Swe- 
denborg expresses  his  gratification  at  finding  the  principles 
he  had  adopted  confirmed  by  those  of  Christian  Wolff,  whose 
works  he  had  just  read,  two  years  after  committing  his  own 
thoughts  to  paper.  Wolff,  on  his  part,  was  pleased  with  the 
work  of  Swedenborg,  and  hastened  to  seek  his  acquaintance. 
With  this  we  may  contrast  the  alarm  expressed  afterwards 
by  Kant,  on  finding  some  of  his  own  views  anticipated  by 


KANT'S   OPINION   OF   SWEDENBORG.  125 

Swedenborg,  whom  he  had  known  only  as  a  mystic.     Kant 

says,— 

"  The  system  of  Swedenborg  is  unfortunately  very  similar  to  my 
own  philosophy.  It  is  not  impossible  that  my  rational  views  may  be 
considered  absurd  by  reason  of  that  affinity.  As  to  the  offensive  com- 
parison, I  declare,  we  must  either  suppose  greater  intelligence  and 
truth  at  the  basis  of  Swedenborg's  writings  than  first  impressions  ex- 
cite, or  that  it  is  a  mere  accident  when  he  coincides  with  my  system, — 
a  lusus  naturae.  Such  a  wonderful  agreement  exists  between  his  doc- 
trines and  the  deepest  results  of  reason,  that  there  is  no  other  alterna- 
tive whereby  the  correspondence  can  be  explained." 1 

The  doctrines  here  referred  to  are  doubtless  the  scientific 
doctrines  of  the  Prutcipia?  not  the  more  purely  philosophical, 
just  entered  upon  in  that  work,  and  more  fully  developed  in 
those  that  followed ;  still  less  the  theological  doctrines  of  a 
later  period.  When  Kant  purchased  the  Arcana  Ccelestia,  he 
was  greatly  disappointed  to  find  that  it  contained  only  ex- 
plications of  Scripture,  of  no  interest  to  him. 

It  was  a  necessity  for  Swedenborg's  mind  to  advance  from 
science,  as  he  found  it,  through  philosophy  to  a  position 
whence  he  could  survey  the  continuous  stream  of  the  Divine 
Providence  from  inmosts  to  outmosts.  In  one  lifetime,  for 
the  purpose  in  view,  there  was  need  that  he  should  be  led 
through  stages  which,  for  complete  development,  will  task 
many  generations.  It  is  no  cause  of  wonder,  then,  that  his 
own  generation  quietly  laid  his  Prindpia  and  other  volumes 
on  the  shelf;  nor  yet  that  there  they  still  lie.  It  need  be  no 
matter  of  surprise  if  some  sticks  of  the  scaffolding  with  which 
he  built  shall  prove  untrustworthy  and  have  to  be  replaced, 
before  we  can  mount  with  him  to  his  summit.  It  would  be  a 
miracle  if  all  his  anticipations  of  science  and  natural  philoso- 
phy should  bear  the  test  of  later  development.  It  would  be 
foreign  to  Swedenborg's  own  genius  and  method  to  imagine 
such  a  result.  It  would  amply  satisfy  him,  and  should  amply 
satisfy  all  his  followers,  if  the  leading  principles  which  he 

1  KANT:  Leipsic,  1838,  iii.  95. 

2  Probably  including  the  Nebular  Hypothesis.     See  Appendix  IX. 


126  PHILOSOPHICAL  STUDIES. 

deduced  from  the  science  at  his  command  should  prove 
substantially  true  under  the  test  of  ages.  Yet  there  is  to 
his  friends  a  pardonable  pleasure  in  finding  one  after  an- 
other of  later  discoveries  and  philosophic  theories  to  be  in 
effect  but  reproductions  of  ideas  so  long  quietly  shelved 
in  Swedenborg's  volumes.  And  surely  it  will  yet  be  seen  to 
be  not  by  mere  accident  that  there  were  laid  away  in  these 
Sibylline  leaves  mathematical  demonstrations  of  the  homo- 
geneity of  the  universe ;  of  the  nebulous  origin  of  worlds ; 
of  the  all-pervading  ether,  and  vortical  magnetic  element ;  of 
the  identical  motion  of  atoms  and  worlds ;  with  hints  at  the 
grouping  of  stars  in  systems,  at  the  position  of  our  system  in 
the  milky  way,  and  at  cyclar  mutation  and  return  in  order.  It 
is  simplest  and  easiest  to  believe,  with  our  author  himself,  that 
a  Spirit  higher  than  his  own  led  the  way,  and,  as  far  as  might 
be,  kept  his  thoughts  in  harmony  with  eternal  truth. 

But  though  science  and  philosophy  have  been  anticipated 
by  Swedenborg,  they  have  not  hitherto  been  instructed  by 
him.  It  may  be  different  hereafter ;  but  thus  far  we  do  not 
follow  him  in  the  labors  by  which  his  mind  was  prepared  to 
receive,  as  on  a  solid  foundation,  the  universal,  spiritual  truths 
of  faith  and  life.  We  are,  in  the  present  generation,  content 
to  enter  into  the  fruits  of  his  labors.  By  these  labors  he 
was  led  to  the  largest  conception  of  the  Divine  purpose,  and 
to  the  deepest  conviction  of  the  Divine  presence,  with  sus- 
taining, creating  power,  in  each  atom,  as  well  as  in  the  grand 
whole,  of  His  universe.  Thus  it  was  that  his  mind  found 
itself,  in  seeking  inmost  causes,  awfully  yet  sweetly  trembling, 
as  in  its  Maker's  presence.  And  in  our  following  with  him 
into  this  presence,  his  labors  bear  their  fruit. 

In  the  same  year  with  the  Principia  Swedenborg  continued 
his  investigation  of  the  questions  of  his  time  in  his  Sketch 
of  a  Philosophical  Argument  on  the  Infinite  and  the  Final 
Cause  of  Creation  ;  and  on  the  Intercourse  between  the  Soul 
and  the  Body.  In  this  essay  his  unswerving  faith  in  Revela- 
tion is  conspicuous  all  through  ;  and  with  it  a  recognition  of 


ON   THE   INFINITE.  I2/ 

something  higher  than  merely  natural  reason.  In  the  Preface 
he  says, — 

"  Philosophy,  if  it  be  truly  rational,  can  never  be  contrary 
to  Revelation  :  that  is  to  say,  if  the  rational  principle  partake 
of  the  soul  more  than  of  the  body,  or  the  reason  arise  from 
no  gross  corporeal  instinct,  whose  end  it  tends  to  realize, 
forming  the  soul  by  use  and  exercise  for  perpetual  obedience 
and  consent  thereto.  .  .  .  The  end  of  reason  can  be  no  other 
than  that  man  may  perceive  what  things  are  revealed  and 
what  are  created  :  thus  the  rational  cannot  be  contrary  to  the 
Divine  ;  since  the  end  why  reason  is  given  us  is  that  we  may 
be  empowered  to  perceive  that  there  is  a  God,  and  to  know 
that  He  is  to  be  worshipped.  If  reason  be  the  mean,  en- 
dowed with  the  faculty  and  power  of  perceiving,  and  if  the 
actual  perception  be  the  end,  then  the  mean,  in  so  far  as  it  is 
correctly  rational,  cannot  be  repugnant  to  the  end.  The  very 
mysteries  that  are  above  reason  cannot  be  contrary  to  reason, 
although  reason  is  unable  to  explain  their  grounds." 

Then  begins  the  first  chapter  thus  beautifully  :  — 

"  In  order  that  we  may  be  favored  and  happy  in  our  en- 
deavors, they  must  begin  from  the  Infinite,  or  God,  without 
whom  no  undertakings  can  attain  a  prosperous  issue.  He  it 
is  that  bestows  on  all  things  their  principles  ;  from  whom  all 
things  finite  took  their  rise ;  from  whom  we  have  our  souls, 
and  by  whom  we  live  ;  by  whom  we  are  at  once  mortals  and 
immortals ;  to  whom  in  fine  we  owe  everything.  And  as  the 
soul  was  created  by  Him  and  added  to  the  body,  and  reason 
to  both,  in  order  that  the  soul  might  be  His, —  so  our  thoughts, 
whether  we  revolve  them  within,  or  utter  them  in  words,  or 
commit  them  to  writing,  must  always  be  so  directed  as  to 
have  their  beginning  and  end  from  Him  ;  whereby  the  Deity 
may  be  present  with  gracious  favor,  as  the  First  and  the  Last, 
in  either  end,  as  well  as  in  the  means." 

Then,  alluding  to  the  desire  of  human  reason  to  be  con- 
vinced in  order  to  accept  theology,  he  shows  at  length  the 
impossibility  of  the  reason's  concluding  anything  in  regard  to 


I28  PHILOSOPHICAL  STUDIES. 

the  nature  of  the  Infinite,  by  comparison  with  the  finite.  But, 
not  abandoning  the  matter  so,  he  proceeds  to  inquire  as  to 
the  producing  cause  of  what  is  finite,  even  of  its  first  and 
least  particular.  Showing  that  it  cannot  have  its  existence  of 
itself,  nor  of  any  other  finite  thing,  since  then  the  question 
would  be  removed  but  one  step  backward,  he  concludes  that 
reason  must  admit  an  infinite  producing  cause.  But  of  these 
there  cannot  be  many,  only  One.  Now,  taking  this  Infinite 
as  the  cause  of  all  creation,  he  deduces  the  entire  variety  from 
the  same  Cause,  in  all  its  order  and  intricacy.  Then  citing 
examples  of  this  order  and  intricate  beauty, —  especially,  in 
ample  detail,  from  the  construction  and  operation  of  the 
organs  of  the  human  body, —  calling  forth  our  admiration,  he 
seeks  to  transfer  this  and  transform  it  into  adoration  for  the 
Deity.  But  this  full  acknowledgment,  he  admits,  must  come 
partly  on  self-evidence,  springing  from  the  human  soul,  and 
partly  as  a  consequence  from  the  arguments  adduced. 

"There  is  in  fact,"  he  says  (p.  46),  "a  tacit  consent,  or  a 
tacit  conclusion  of  the  soul,  to  the  being  as  well  as  to  the 
infinity  of  God.  This  is  dictated,  I  say,  partly  by  the  soul  in 
its  own  free  essence,  partly  by  the  soul  as  instructed  and  ad- 
vised by  the  diverse  innumerable  effects  presented  in  the 
world.  ...  It  cannot  be  denied  that  there  is  that  in  man  as 
man,  provided  he  enjoy  the  use  of  reason,  which  acknowl- 
edges an  omnipotent  God,  an  omnipresent  and  all-provident 
Deity ;  it  seems  therefore  to  be  innate,  and  to  be  a  power  or 
action  of  reason,  when  not  on  the  one  hand  troubled  too 
much  by  its  own  ideas,  nor  on  the  other  hand  too  destitute 
of  all  cultivation  and  development.  But  we  care  not  whether 
it  be  spontaneous  or  the  contrary,  if  it  be  admitted  that  there 
is  no  one  living,  provided  he  be  not  over  or  under  rational, 
but  acknowledges  the  existence  of  a  Deity,  however  ignorant 
he  be  of  the  Divine  nature.  Hence  it  is  that  after  man  has 
exerted  his  powers  and  whetted  his  reason  to  find  out  this 
nature,  he  falls  into  strange  darkness  and  ideal  conclusions. 
He  knows  indeed  that  there  is  a  Deity;  that  there  is  an 


ON   THE   INFINITE. 


129 


omnipotence ;  but  he  has  been  unsuccessful  in  eliciting  the 
nature  of  either  from  any  dictates  of  reason.  ...  In  truth, 
mankind  is  always  desirous  to  imagine  the  qualities  of  God ; 
to  bring  Him  within  the  bounds  of  reason  and  rational  ideas ; 
and  to  finite  and  fix  Him  in  something,  by  something,  or  to 
something.  For  this  reason  the  above  investigation  has  all 
along  been  the  issue  and  offspring  of  reason  and  philosophy. 
And  though  the  philosophers  have  heard  that  He  is  infinite, 
yet  on  behalf  of  poor  reason,  which  is  always  bounded  by 
finite  limits,  they  imagine  the  infinite  as  finite  \  being  unable 
to  perceive  at  all  apart  from  the  finite.  We  now  therefore 
see  why  reason  has  failed,  and  that  the  cause  is  the  same  in 
the  common  people  as  in  the  learned." 

Proceeding  then  to  point  out  in  detail  the  errors  of  many 
theories,  some  of  which  it  is  easy  to  recognize,  though  their 
authors'  names  are  not  mentioned,  all  of  which  errors  are 
owing  to  the  judging  of  the  infinite  from  the  finite,  he  con- 
cludes that, — 

"  Beyond  our  finite  sphere  there  are  verily  infinities,  to  the 
knowledge  of  which  it  is  useless  to  aspire ;  and  which  in  the 
Infinite  are  infinitely  many,  and  can  be  known  to  no  one  but 
the  Infinite.  In  order  that  these  may  in  some  measure  be 
conceived  by  the  soul  introduced  through  faith  into  com- 
munion with  the  Infinite,  it  has  pleased  God  to  discover  by 
Revelation  much  whereby  the  mind  can  finitely  conceive  and 
express  Him  :  not  however  that  finite  perceptions  or  expres- 
sions are  similar  or  adequate  to  Him,  but  only  that  those 
made  use  of  are  not  repugnant"  (p.  57). 

Returning  to  what  has  been  granted,  that  the  Infinite 
exists  as  the  cause  of  the  finite  world,  Swedenborg  next 
questions  whether  or  no  there  must  be  a  nexus,  or  means  of 
influence,  between  the  Infinite  and  the  finite.  Showing  by 
argument  that  a  nexus  is  indispensable,  he  then  shows  that 
the  nexus  itself  must  be  infinite,  not  finite.  Assuming  this  to 
be  within  our  knowledge  by  proof  of  reason,  he  asks  whether, 
if  any  one  can  tell  us  more  about  this  nexus  which  shall  agree 

9 


•  I3O  PHILOSOPHICAL  STUDIES. 

with  what  we  already  know,  we  shall  not  listen  to  it  ?  And 
then  he  alleges,  what  he  says  has  been  taught  by  Revelation, 
that  this  nexus  is  the  Son  of  God,  begotten  from  eternity,  to 
be  the  means  of  communication  from  the  Infinite  with  the 
finite.  But,  from  what  he  has  already  shown,  he  declares  this 
nexus  itself  to  be  infinite  ;  and  as  there  cannot  be  two  infinites, 
the  nexus,  or  the  Son  of  God,  is  none  other  than  the  Infinite, 
God  Himself. 

"To  say  then,"  he  continues,  "that  the  finite  came  forth 
mediately  through  the  Son,  is  exactly  tantamount  to  saying 
that  it  came  forth  immediately  through  the  Father,  or  imme- 
diately through  the  Son ;  since  the  Father  and  the  Son  are 
alike  the  Infinite,  and  the  Infinite  is  the  immediate  cause  of 
the  finite"  (p.  65). 

Then  showing  that  in  creation  there  must  be  a  Divine,  or 
infinite,  final  end ;  that  this  end  is  to  be  reached  through  the 
whole  chain  of  creation,  of  which  man  is  the  last  link,  the 
crown  of  all, —  he  declares  that  in  man,  therefore,  for  the  ful- 
filment of  the  Divine  end,  there  must  be  something  that  can 
partake  of  the  Infinite  :  — 

"  Not  certainly  in  the  fact  that  man  is  an  animal,  and  has 
senses  provided  him  to  enjoy  the  delights  of  the  world ;  nor 
in  the  fact  that  he  has  a  soul,  for  his  soul  is  finite,  and  can 
contain  nothing  of  the  Infinite.  Neither  in  reason,  which  is 
the  effect  of  the  co-operation  between  the  soul  and  the  body ; 
which,  as  they  are  both  finite,  so  the  effect  of  both  is  also 
finite  :  therefore  it  does  not  lie  in  reason.  So  far  we  find 
nothing  Divine  in  man.  Where  is  that,  then,  which  appears 
to  be  nowhere,  and  yet  is  necessary  to  realize  the  Divine 
end?  ...  It  lies  in  this,  that  man  can  acknowledge,  and 
does  acknowledge,  God;  that  he  can  believe,  and  does 
believe,  that  God  is  infinite ;  that  though  he  is  ignorant  of 
the  nature  of  the  Deity,  yet  he  can  acknowledge,  and  does 
acknowledge,  His  existence, —  and  this  without  the  shadow  of 
doubt.  And  especially  does  it  consist  in  this  further  privilege, 
that  by  that  undoubting  faith  he  is  sensible  in  love,  or  delight 


THE   MEDIATOR.  13! 

resulting  from  love,  of  a  peculiar  connection  with  the  Infinite. 
But  where  he  doubts,  he  does  not  acknowledge,  and  the 
Divine  is  not  in  him.  All  Divine  worship  proceeds  from  this 
fountain  of  faith  and  love.  .  .  .  Thus  the  true  divinity  in 
man,  who  is  the  final  effect  in  which  the  Divine  end  dwells, 
is  none  other  than  an  acknowledgment  of  the  existence  and 
infinity  of  God,  .  .  .  and  a  sense  of  delight  in  the  love  of  God, 
although  human  reason  cannot  do  this  of  itself,  inasmuch  as 
man,  with  all  his  parts  and  his  very  soul,  is  finite ;  notwith- 
standing which  he  may  be  a  fit  recipient,  and  as  he  is  in 
the  finite  sphere  he  may  concur  to  dispose  himself  for  re- 
ception" (p.  71). 

Now  comes  the  crowning  effort  in  this  argument.  It 
being  granted  that  the  Divine  sought  this  final  return  of  crea- 
tion to  Itself,  the  question  is  asked,  how  it  is  to  be  secured 
through  the  various  stages  from  first  to  last.  The  answer 
being  given  that  it  is  to  be  secured  by  means  of  the  soul, 
which  from  its  altitude  is  designed  to  rule  the  body,  it  is 
asked  by  what  means  the  true  order  is  to  be  restored  when,  as 
must  have  been  foreseen,  the  body  refuses  to  obey  the  in- 
stincts of  the  soul  and  fails  to  serve  its  true  purpose.  And 
the  triumphant  answer  is  given  that  "  God  provided  against 
this  by  His  Infinite,  only-begotten  Son,  who  took  on  Him 
the  ultimate  effect  of  the  world,  or  a  manhood  and  a  human 
shape,  and  thereby  was  infinite  in  and  with  the  finite,  and 
consequently  restored  the  nexus  in  His  own  person  between 
the  infinite  and  the  finite,  so  that  the  primary  end  was 
realized.  .  .  .  The  Infinite  .  .  .  thus  Himself  became  the  last 
effect, —  at  once  God  and  man,  the  Mediator  between  the 
finite  and  the  infinite.  .  .  .  Without  Him  there  would  be  no 
connection  between  the  last  effect  and  the  infinite  ;  whereas 
through  Him  somewhat  of  the  Divine  may  dwell  in  us, 
namely  in  the  faculty  to  know  and  believe  that  there  is  a 
God,  and  that  He  is  infinite.  And  again  through  Him,  by 
the  use  of  the  means,  we  are  led  to  true  religion,  and  be- 
come children  of  God,  and  not  of  the  world"  (p.  79). 


132  PHILOSOPHICAL  STUDIES. 

Observing  now  that  this  is  not  the  place  to  explain  the 
nature  of  the  connection  by  the  nexus,  he  stops  to  consider 
the  difficulty  which  may  be  felt  as  to  the  condition  of  those 
who  have  not  learned  and  believed  in  the  Messiah.  He  con- 
cludes that  though  the  coming  of  the  Messiah  is  the  essential 
means  of  salvation,  yet  "  those  who  did  not  know,  and  do 
not  know,  that  He  has  come,  could  and  can  become  par- 
takers, by  the  grace  of  God,  through  His  coming ;  for  other- 
wise we  should  suppose  something  in  God  that  would  seem 
at  variance  with  His  Divine  nature  and  end.  But  as  for  those 
who  know  the  Messiah,  or  have  the  opportunity  to  know 
Him,  we  say  that  they  too  are  made  partakers  through  His 
coming ;  but  the  knowledge  also  of  His  coming  is  necessary 
to  them  in  order  to  their  faith,  for  the  quality  of  faith  is  de- 
termined by  knowledge,  and  its  perception  rendered  distinct 
and  full ;  and  therefore  where  knowledge  is  given,  it  and 
faith  are  inseparable"  (p.  81). 

In  the  next  chapter,  having  settled  the  primary  end  of  man 
to  begin  and  end  in  the  Infinite,  Swedenborg  inquires  into 
other  ends  relating  to  this  world,  and  finds  them  all  to  be 
secondary,  but  good  and  properly  conducing  to  the  primary 
end,  and  receiving  their  highest  delight  in  it.  He  says, — 

"  It  may  therefore  be  said  that  nothing  can  be  or  exist  in 
man,  or  the  world,  that  does  not  tend  to  that  one  end ;  so 
that  in  this  way  there  is  nothing,  whether  dead  or  alive,  but 
adores  and  worships  God,  since  all  things  tend  to  obtain  the 
Divine  end  in  the  ultimate  effect.  And  oh  !  how  greatly 
happy  man  would  be,  if  he  directed  thither  all  worldly  de- 
lights, and  all  the  gifts  of  the  mundane  sphere  !"  (p.  83). 

In  this  reverent  doctrine  we  recognize  the  true  Christian 
philosophy  of  life,  equally  removed  from  sensualism  and  from 
asceticism,  and  such  as  he  taught  afterwards  under  the  light 
of  Revelation.  The  summing  up  of  our  author's  argument 
is  as  follows  :  — 

"  Observe  what  we  have  gained.  We  have  the  affirmation 
of  reason  for  the  existence  of  God,  and  also  for  His  Infinity ; 


NEED   OF   REVELATION. 


133 


and  as  this  is  now  positive  knowledge,  together  with  that 
other  truth  of  the  existence  of  a  nexus  between  God  and  man 
in  the  Person  of  the  only-begotten  Son,  so  we  may  legiti- 
mately advance,  not  indeed  to  inquire  into  the  nature  or 
qualities  of  Deity,  because  He  is  infinite,  and  His  qualities 
therefore  we  can  never  penetrate,  but  to  inquire  what  there 
can  be  in  man  to  lead  to  this  primary  end ;  what  there  can 
be  in  him  that  does  not  repugn  the  infinite  and  the  nexus ; 
how  a  confessedly  infinite  Deity  may  best  be  expressed  in 
finite  terms  that  shall  not  be  repugnant  to  the  occasion ;  what 
befitting  worship  consists  in ;  what  is  the  peculiar  efficacy  of 
faith  proceeding  from  a  true  acknowledgment  of  God ;  with 
innumerable  other  subjects,  which  cannot  be  settled  briefly, 
but  require  to  be  rationally  deduced  in  a  volume  by  them- 
selves. And  as,  by  the  grace  of  God,  we  have  all  these  mat- 
ters revealed  in  Holy  Scripture,  so  where  reason  is  perplexed 
in  its  apprehensions  we  must  at  once  have  recourse  to  Reve- 
lation ;  and  where  we  cannot  discover  from  Revelation  either 
what  we  should  adopt  or  in  what  sense  we  should  understand 
its  declarations,  we  must  then  fly  to  the  oracle  of  reason.  In 
this  way  natural  theology  must  proffer  her  hand  to  revealed, 
where  the  meaning  of  Revelation  seems  doubtful;  and  re- 
vealed theology  must  lend  her  guidance  in  turn  to  rational 
theology  when  reason  is  in  straits.  For  revealed  and  rational 
theology  can  never  be  contrary  to  each  other,  if  only  the 
latter  be  truly  rational,  and  does  not  attempt  to  penetrate 
into  the  mysteries  of  infinity ;  in  which  case  it  is  not  truly 
rational"  (p.  85). 

The  second  part  of  this  essay  on  the  Infinite  treats  of  the 
mechanism  of  the  intercourse  between  the  soul  and  the  body, 
evidently  in  pursuance  of  the  efforts  of  Descartes,  Leibnitz, 
and  Locke,  though  treating  the  subject  in  a  very  different 
manner.  Its  essential  feature  is  the  careful  distinction  of  the 
soul,  together  with  the  body,  as  finite,  in  contradistinction 
from  the  Infinite.  From  this  finiteness  the  conclusion  is 
drawn  that  the  soul,  as  well  as  the  body,  has  qualities,  modes, 


134  PHILOSOPHICAL  STUDIES. 

and  parts  subject  to  a  higher  geometry  and  mechanics,  and 
therefore  subject  to  investigation  and  knowledge.  But  from 
the  approach  to  the  Infinite  in  the  constitution  and  material 
of  the  soul,  the  absolute  conclusion  is  drawn  that  it  must 
needs  be  immortal. 

"The  main  end  of  these  our  labors,"  he  says,  "will  be  to 
demonstrate  the  immortality  of  the  soul  to  the  very  senses. 
What  is  Life  but  the  commencement,  formation,  and  prepara- 
tion of  the  soul  for  a  state  in  which  it  is  to  live  forever  after 
the  body  dies?  And  what  this  formation  and  preparation, 
but  the  means  by  which  the  soul, —  which  in  intrinsic  subtilty, 
purity,  and  perfection,  and  in  its  capacity  of  receiving  the 
Divine  end,  is  far  superior  and  very  dissimilar  to  the  natural 
body, —  shall  continually  strive  to  form  and  bend  the  body  to 
its  likeness,  and  never  suffer  the  latter  to  reverse  the  order, 
or  to  form  and  model  the  soul"  (p.  148). 

This  attempt  of  our  author  seems  somewhat  crude  to  those 
who  are  familiar  with  his  later  explanations  of  the  same  sub- 
ject. But  if  we  compare  it  with  the  vague  and  contradictory 
theories  of  the  time  in  which  it  was  written,  we  find  in  it  an 
immense  step,1  —  and  an  indispensable  step  in  the  prepara- 
tion of  the  author's  mind  for  the  enlightenment  that  was 
soon  to  come. 

Already  in  the  Principia  Swedenborg  had  made  use,  for 
illustration,  of  details  in  the  construction  and  operation  of  the 
human  body ;  and  in  the  essays  we  have  been  noticing  there 
are  elaborate  references  to  minute  studies  of  the  anatomy, 
particularly,  of  the  brain,  in  search  of  the  residence  of  the 
soul.  It  was  in  pursuit  of  the  same  end,  to  learn  something 
of  the  soul  and  its  Maker,  of  which  these  essays  gave  but  pre- 
liminary intimations,  that  our  author  devoted  the  next  ten 
years  to  anatomical  and  philosophical  research,  presenting 
its  first  fruits  in  the  Economy  of  the  Animal  Kingdom. 

1  Appendix  X. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

PHILOSOPHICAL   STUDIES    CONCLUDED. 

THE  Economy  of  the  Animal  Kingdom  was  a  tentative 
effort,  confessedly  immature,  to  arrive  at  a  philosophic  view 
of  the  construction  and  operation  of  the  human  mechanism, 
especially  as  the  abode  and  instrument  of  the  soul.  The 
subject,  with  this  aim,  was  new  ground,  and  therefore  difficult, 
if  not  impossible,  to  enter  upon  systematically  and  master  at 
the  first  onset.  A  reconnoissance  in  force  was  necessary,  in 
order  to  determine  in  what  way  the  final  assault  should  be 
made.  Such  a  reconnoissance  we  find  in  the  "Economy"  : 

"  Our  organs  are  opened  only  by  degrees ;  the  images  and 
notions  at  first  received  are  obscure,  and,  if  I  may  so  speak, 
the  whole  universe  is  represented  to  the  eye  as  a  single  in- 
distinct thing,  a  formless  chaos.  In  the  course  of  time,  how- 
ever, its  various  parts  become  comparatively  distinct,  and  at 
length  are  presented  to  the  tribunal  of  the  rational  mind ; 
whence  it  is  not  till  late  in  life  that  we  become  rational  beings. 
In  this  manner  by  degrees  a  passage  is  effected  to  the  soul, 
which,  abiding  in  her  intelligence,  decrees  that  the  way  lead- 
ing to  her  shall  thus  be  opened,  in  order  that  all  actions,  and 
the  reasons  for  all,  may  be  referred  to  her  as  their  genuine 
principle.  .  .  .  There  is  need  of  time  and  of  further  progress 
to  render  the  subject  clear;  and  moreover  the  doctrine  of 
the  blood,  although  it  is  the  first  we  have  to  propound,  is 
nevertheless  the  last  that  can  be  completed.  The  result,  then, 
must  show  whether  or  not  those  statements  which  at  first  per- 
haps appear  like  obscure  guess-work,  are  in  the  end  so  abun- 
dantly attested  by  effects  as  to  prove  that  they  are  indeed 
the  oracular  responses  of  the  truth  "  (p.  3). 


136  PHILOSOPHICAL  STUDIES. 

"  In  the  experimental  knowledge  of  anatomy  our  way  has 
been  pointed  out  by  men  of  the  greatest  and  most  cultivated 
talents,  such  as  Eustachius,"  and  nineteen  others  named, 
"  whose  discoveries,  far  from  consisting  of  fallacious,  vague, 
and  empty  speculations,  will  forever  continue  to  be  of  prac- 
tical use  to  posterity.  Assisted  by  the  studies  and  elaborate 
writings  of  these  illustrious  men,  and  fortified  by  their  authority, 
I  have  resolved  to  commence  and  complete  my  design  :  that 
is  to  say,  to  open  some  part  of  those  things  which  it  is  gen- 
erally supposed  that  nature  has  involved  in  obscurity.  Here 
and  there  I  have  taken  the  liberty  to  throw  in  the  results  of 
my  own  experience ;  but  this  only  sparingly,  for,  on  deeply 
considering  the  matter,  I  deemed  it  best  to  make  use  of  the 
facts  supplied  by  others.  Indeed  there  are  some  that  seem 
born  for  experimental  observation  and  endowed  with  a  sharper 
insight  than  others,  as  if  they  possessed  naturally  a  finer  acu- 
men. .  .  .  There  are  others  again  who  enjoy  a  natural  faculty 
for  contemplating  facts  already  discovered,  and  eliciting  their 
causes.  Both  are  peculiar  gifts  and  are  seldom  united  in  the 
same  person.  Besides,  I  found,  when  intently  occupied  in 
exploring  the  secrets  of  the  human  body,  that,  as  soon  as  I 
discovered  anything  which  had  not  been  observed  before,  I 
began,  seduced  probably  by  self-love,  to  grow  blind  to  the 
most  acute  lucubrations  and  researches  of  others,  and  to 
originate  the  whole  series  of  inductive  arguments  from  my 
particular  discovery  alone.  .  .  .  Nay,  when  I  essayed  to  form 
principles  from  these  discoveries,  I  thought  I  could  detect 
in  various  other  phenomena  much  to  confirm  their  truth, 
although  in  reality  they  were  fairly  susceptible  of  no  construc- 
tion of  the  kind.  I  therefore  laid  aside  my  instruments  and, 
restraining  my  desire  for  making  observations,  determined 
rather  to  rely  on  the  researches  of  others  than  to  trust  to 
my  own"  (p.  7). 

After  describing  as  from  experience  the  faculty  which  some 
enjoy, — we  doubt  if  ever  any  one  more  than  he, —  of  con- 
fining their  attention  to  one  thing  and  evolving  with  dis- 


ECONOMY   OF   THE   ANIMAL  KINGDOM. 


137 


tinctness  all  that  lies  in  it,  of  distributing  their  thoughts  into 
classes,  separating  mixed  topics  into  appropriate  divisions,  of 
skilfully  subordinating  the  series  thus  divided,  and  of  being 
never  overwhelmed  by  the  multiplicity  of  things,  but  con- 
tinually enlightened  more  and  more,  he  says  of  such  as 
enjoy  the  faculty, — 

"  The  fictitious  depresses  them,  the  obscure  pains  them ; 
but  they  are  exhilarated  by  the  truth,  and,  in  the  presence 
of  everything  that  is  clear,  they  too  are  clear  and  serene. 
When,  after  a  long  course  of  reasoning,  they  make  a  discovery 
of  the  truth,  straightway  there  is  a  cheering  light  and  joy- 
ful confirmatory  brightness  that  plays  around  the  sphere  of 
their  mind,  and  a  kind  of  mysterious  radiation  —  I  know  not 
whence  it  proceeds  —  that  darts  through  some  sacred  temple 
in  the  brain.  Thus  a  sort  of  rational  instinct  displays  itself, 
and  in  a  manner  gives  notice  that  the  soul  is  called  into  a 
state  of  inward  communion,  and  has  returned  at  that  moment 
into  the  golden  age  of  its  intellectual  perfections.  The  mind 
that  has  known  this  pleasure  is  wholly  carried  away  in  pursuit 
of  it ;  and  in  the  kindling  flame  of  its  love  despises  in  com- 
parison, as  external  pastimes,  all  merely  corporeal  pleasures ; 
and  although  it  recognizes  them  as  means  for  exciting  the 
animal  mind  and  the  purer  blood,  it  on  no  account  follows 
them  as  ends.  Persons  of  this  cast  consider  the  arts  and 
sciences  only  as  aids  to  wisdom,  and  learn  them  as  helps  to 
its  attainment,  not  that  they  may  be  reputed  wise  for  possess- 
ing them.  They  modestly  restrain  all  tendency  to  inflated 
ideas  of  themselves,  knowing  that  the  sciences  are  an  ocean, 
of  which  they  can  catch  but  a  few  drops.  They  look  on  no 
one  with  a  scornful  brow,  or  a  supercilious  air,  nor  arrogate 
any  praise  to  themselves.  They  ascribe  all  to  the  Deity,  and 
regard  Him  as  the  source  from  which  all  true  wisdom  de- 
scends. In  the  promotion  of  His  glory  they  place  the  end 
and  object  of  their  own"  (p.  9). 

Remarking  now  how  sensual  and  worldly  cares  impair  this 
noble  faculty,  he  says,  "  Nothing  superinduces  more  darkness 


138  PHILOSOPHICAL  STUDIES. 

on  the  human  mind  than  the  interference  of  its  own  fancied 
providence  in  matters  that  properly  belong  to  the  Divine 
Providence."  And  then  he  goes  on  to  say,  still  as  from 
experience, — 

"  This  faculty,  however,  is  chiefly  impaired  by  the  thirst  for 
glory  and  the  love  of  self.  I  know  not  what  darkness  over- 
spreads the  rational  faculties  when  the  mind  begins  to  swell 
with  pride,  or  when  our  intuition  of  objects  calls  up  in  the 
objects  themselves  the  image  and  glory  of  our  own  selfhood. 
It  is  like  pouring  a  liquor  upon  some  exquisite  wine,  which 
throws  it  into  a  froth,  sullies  its  purity,  and  clouds  its  trans- 
lucence.  It  is  as  if  the  animal  spirits  were  stirred  into  waves, 
and  a  tempest  drove  the  grosser  blood  into  insurgent  motion, 
by  which  the  organs  of  internal  sensation  or  perception  be- 
coming swollen,  the  powers  of  thought  are  dulled,  and  the 
whole  scene  of  action  in  their  theatre  changed.  In  those 
who  experience  these  disorderly  states,  the  rational  faculty  is 
crippled  and  brought  to  a  standstill ;  or  rather  its  movements 
become  retrograde  instead  of  progressive.  A  limit  is  put  to 
its  operations,  which  its  possessor  imagines  to  be  the  limit  of 
all  human  capacity,  because  he  himself  is  unable  to  overstep 
it.  He  sees  little  or  nothing  in  the  most  studied  researches  of 
others,  but  everything  —  oh,  how  vain-glorious  !  —  in  his  own. 
Nor  can  he  return  to  correct  conceptions,  until  his  elated 
thoughts  have  subsided  to  their  proper  level.  'There  are 
many,'  says  Seneca,  'who  might  have  attained  to  wisdom, 
had  they  not  fancied  they  had  attained  it  already.'  The 
Muses  love  a  tranquil  mind  ;  and  there  is  nothing  but  humility, 
a  contempt  of  self,  and  a  simple  love  of  truth,  that  can  pre- 
vent or  remedy  the  evils  we  have  described. 

"  But  how  often  does  a  man  labor  in  vain  to  divest  himself 
of  his  own  nature  !  How  often,  when  ignorant  or  unmindful 
of  the  love  that  creeps  upon  him,  will  he  betray  a  partiality  to 
himself  and  the  offspring  of  his  own  genius  !  If  an  author, 
therefore,  desires  that  his  studies  should  give  birth  to  any- 
thing of  sterling  value,  let  him  be  advised,  when  he  has  com- 


ECONOMY  OF  THE  ANIMAL  KINGDOM. 


139 


mitted  to  paper  what  he  considers  to  be  of  particular  merit 
and  is  fond  of  frequently  perusing,  to  lay  it  aside  for  a  while, 
and  after  the  lapse  of  months  to  retuni  to  it  as  to  something 
he  had  forgotten,  and  as  the  production  not  of  himself  but  of 
some  other  writer.  Let  him  repeat  this  practice  three  or  four 
times  in  the  year.  .  .  .  Should  his  writings  then  often  raise 
a  blush  upon  his  countenance,  should  he  no  longer  feel  an 
overweening  confidence  with  regard  to  the  lines  which  had 
received  the  latest  polish  from  his  hands,  let  him  be  assured 
that  he  has  made  some  little  progress  in  wisdom"  (p.  n). 

After  commending  the  ancients  for  their  wisdom  in  the 
study  of  the  principles  of  things,  and  again  those  of  his  own 
and  previous  times  for  accumulating  experience,  he  says, — 

"Thus  does  it  seem  to  be  the  will  of  that  Providence 
which  rules  all  earthly  affairs,  that  the  one  state  should  be 
succeeded  by  the  other :  that  the  parents  should  instruct  the 
children ;  and  that  the  ancients  should  incite  their  posterity 
to  the  acquisition  of  the  experimental  knowledge  by  which 
their  contemplative  sciences  may  be  confirmed  ;  and  in  like 
manner  that  we  of  the  present  age  should  stimulate  the  gen- 
erations that  follow  us  to  work  again  and  again  in  the  mines 
of  the  same  experience,  so  that  they,  in  their  turn,  may  attain 
to  a  deeper  insight  and  a  further  progress ;  in  fine,  that  vari- 
ous ages  should  cultivate  various  kinds  of  learning,  in  order, 
as  it  would  appear,  that  the  sciences  may  at  last  arrive  at 
their  destined  perfection"  (p.  13). 

Referring  to  the  stores  of  experimental  knowledge  now 
collected,  he  concludes, — 

"And  the  time  is  at  hand  when  we  may  quit  the  harbor 
and  sail  for  the  open  sea.  The  materials  are  ready ;  shall  we 
not  build  the  edifice  ?  The  harvest  is  waiting ;  shall  we  not 
put  in  the  sickle  ?  The  produce  of  the  garden  is  rife  and 
ripe ;  shall  we  fail  to  collect  it  for  use  ?  Let  us  enjoy  the 
provided  banquet ;  that  is  to  say,  from  the  experience  with 
which  we  are  enriched,  let  us  elicit  wisdom.  .  .  .  But  to 
launch  out  into  this  field  is  like  embarking  on  a  shoreless 


I4O  PHILOSOPHICAL  STUDIES. 

ocean  that  environs  the  world.  It  is  easy  to  quit  the  land,  or 
to  loose  the  horses  from  the  starting-post ;  but  to  attain  the 
end  or  reach  the  goal  is  a  labor  for  Hercules.  Nevertheless 
we  are  bound  to  attempt  the  abyss,  though  as  yet  we  must 
needs  proceed  like  young  birds  that,  with  the  feeble  strokes 
of  their  new-fledged  wings,  first  essay  their  strength,  and  from 
their  nests  try  the  air,  the  new  world  into  which  they  are  to 
enter"  (p.  14). 

Entering  forthwith  on  his  task,  he  adopts  the  following 
method.  At  the  beginning  of  each  chapter  he  places  a 
collection  of  important  observations  concerning  its  subject, 
drawn  from  various  authors.  Next  he  compactly  states  his 
induction  from  these  premises,  as  to  the  constitution  and  use 
of  the  substance  or  organ  in  the  human  frame.  And  then, 
clause  by  clause,  he  repeats  this  induction,  explaining  and 
confirming  each  in  detail. 

In  the  Economy  of  the  Animal  Kingdom  Swedenborg 
takes  a  grand  step  towards  his  goal ;  but  it  is,  as  we  have 
said  and  as  he  premised,  a  tentative  step,  trying  his  wings, 
and  involving  some  of  the  errors  of  which  he  warned  the 
inexperienced.  It  is  invaluable  to  us  as  marking  the  manner 
and  extent  of  his  progress ;  but  its  instructiveness  in  other 
respects  is  in  a  measure  superseded  by  the  author's  second, 
more  valuable  essay,  which  soon  followed.  That  he  did  not 
expect  from  contemporaries  much  recognition  of  these  labors 
—  at  some  variance  with  the  scientific,  experimental  tendency 
of  their  time,  and  not  less  as  yet  with  that  of  our  own  — 
is  evident  from  the  motto  which  he  prefixed,  from  Seneca  : 
"Faucis  natus  est,  qui  populum  setatis  suae  cogitat.  Multa 
annorum  millia,  multa  populorum  supervenient:  ad  ilia  respice, 

etiamsi  omnibus  tecumviventibus  silentium [aliqua  causa] 

indixerit :  venient  qui  sine  offensa,  sine  gratia  judicent."1 

1  "  He  is  born  to  serve  but  few,  who  thinks  of  the  people  of  his  own  age. 
Many  thousands  of  years,  many  generations  of  men  are  yet  to  come :  look  to 
these,  though  for  some  cause  silence  has  been  imposed  on  all  of  your  own  day ; 
there  will  come  those  who  may  judge  without  offence  and  without  favor." 


RATIONAL  PSYCHOLOGY.  141 

And  again  he  says,  in  Part  Second,  perhaps  a  little  self- 
confidently,-^- 

"Of  what  consequence  is  it  to  me  that  I  should  persuade 
any  one  to  embrace  my  opinions  ?  Let  his  own  reason  per- 
suade him.  I  do  not  undertake  this  work  for  the  sake  of 
honor  or  emolument,  —  both  of  which  I  shun  rather  than 
seek,  because  they  disquiet  the  mind,  and  because  I  am  con- 
tent with  my  lot,  —  but  for  the  sake  of  the  truth,  which  alone 
is  immortal,  and  has  its  portion  in  the  most  perfect  order  of 
nature  ;  hence  only  in  the  series  of  ends  of  the  universe  from 
the  first  to  the  last,  which  is  the  glory  of  God ;  which  ends 
He  promotes.  Thus  I  surely  know  Who  it  is  that  must 
reward  me"  (vol.  ii.  p.  210). 

At  the  conclusion  of  Part  First,  Swedenborg  gives  a  chap- 
ter which  he  styles  "An  Introduction  to  Rational  Psychology," 
regarding  this  as  "  the  first  and  last  of  those  sciences  which 
lead  to  the  knowledge  of  the  animal  economy."  "But 
whereas  the  soul,"  he  goes  on  to  say,  "lives  withdrawn  so  far 
within  that  she  cannot  be  exposed  to  view  until  the  coverings 
under  which  she  is  hidden  are  unfolded  and  removed  in 
order, — it  hence  becomes  necessary  that  we  ascend  to  her  by 
the  same  steps  or  degrees  and  the  same  ladder  by  which  her 
nature,  in  the  formation  of  the  things  of  her  kingdom,  de- 
scends into  her  body.  By  way  therefore  of  an  Introduction 
to  Rational  Psychology,  I  will  premise  the  Doctrine  of  Series 
and  Degrees, —  a  doctrine  of  which,  in  the  preceding  chap- 
ters, I  have  made  such  frequent  mention,  the  design  of  which 
is  to  teach  the  nature  of  order  and  its  rules  as  observed  and 
prescribed  in  the  succession  of  things.  ...  As  often  as  Na- 
ture betakes  herself  upwards  from  visible  phenomena,  or,  in 
other  words,  withdraws  herself  inwards,  she  instantly  as  it 
were  disappears,  while  no  one  knows  what  is  become  of  her, 
or  whither  she  is  gone  ;  so  that  it  is  necessary  to  take  science 
as  a  guide  to  attend  us  in  pursuing  her  steps.  Without  a 
guide  of  this  kind,  moreover,  we  shall  have  a  tendency  to  fall 
into  various  premature  opinions ;  we  shall  be  apt  to  think,  for 


142  PHILOSOPHICAL  STUDIES. 

instance,  that  the  soul,  either  from  principles  proper  to  her- 
self or  from  such  as  are  above  herself,  flows  immediately  into 
the  effects  of  her  own  body ;  whence  it  necessarily  follows 
that  the  communication  of  operations  between  the  soul  and 
the  body  must  be  explained  either  by  Physical  Influx  [the 
doctrine  of  the  Aristotelians],  or  by  Occasional  Causes  [the 
doctrine  of  Descartes]  ;  or,  if  by  neither  of  these,  a  third  is 
assumed  as  the  only  alternative,  namely,  that  si  Pre-established 
Harmony  [the  doctrine  of  Leibnitz].1  Thus  the  one  or  other 
system  flows  as  a  consequence  from  our  want  of  knowledge 
respecting  the  subordination  of  things,  and  the  connection 
of  things  subordinate.  .  .  .  But  whereas  all  things  in  succeed- 
ing each  other  follow  one  another  in  order,  and  whereas  in 
the  whole  circle  of  things,  from  first  to  last,  there  is  not  a 
single  one  which  is  altogether  unconnected  or  detached  from 
the  rest, —  I  am  compelled,  as  I  said,  previous  to  developing 
the  subject  of  Rational  Psychology,  to  take  into  considera- 
tion this  doctrine  concerning  order  and  connection,  so  re- 
markably conspicuous  in  the  animal  kingdom"  (vol.  ii.  p.  i). 
To  attempt  to  follow  our  author's  reasoning,  or  even  to 
give  a  full  statement  of  his  conclusions,  would  take  us  too  far. 
The  scope  of  his  plan  we  see  to  be  transcendent, — being 
nothing  less  than  to  determine  the  order  and  modes  of  con- 
nection of  all  things  in  series  from  their  primal  cause,  the 
Deity.  And  two  remarkable  features  of  his  doctrine,  gained 
for  himself  by  study  of  the  human  system,  in  connection  with 
his  previous  study  into  the  composition  of  matter,  are  of  the 
utmost  importance  in  themselves  and  in  furnishing  a  founda- 
tion for  his  later  teachings.  The  one  is  the  connection  of 
things  interior,  prior,  and  superior  with  analogous  things, 
exterior,  posterior,  and  inferior,  by  perfect  adaptation  and 
correspondence,  and  by  relation  of  cause  and  effect,  —  a 

1  It  is  Aristotle,  "  the  Gentile,"  that  Swedenborg  most  cites  in  these  re- 
searches, though  occasionally  referring  to  the  Christian  Fathers,  to  Grotius, 
"  the  Christian  philosopher,"  and  to  Descartes,  Leibnitz,  Wolff,  and  Locke's 
"  golden  essay." 


ECONOMY  OF  THE  ANIMAL  KINGDOM.  143 

doctrine  which  he  afterwards  termed  that  of  "discrete  de- 
grees." The  other  is  the  control,  in  being  the  instant  source 
of  all  life  and  power,  which  by  this  doctrine  rests  in  the 
Deity,  through  intermediates,  over  every  atom  of  His  uni- 
verse. These  things  we  shall  find  him  treating  again,  under 
higher  light,  and  without  feeling  the  need  which  he  now 
feels  of  a  "mathematical  science  of  universals,"  which  by 
a  language  of  its  own  may  express  things  inexpressible  by 
ordinary  language. 

The  first  chapter  of  Part  Second  of  the  Economy  of  the 
Animal  Kingdom  is  devoted  to  the  motion  of  the  brain,  the 
second  to  the  cortical  substance  of  the  brain,  and  the  third 
to  the  human  soul.  Confessing  the  difficulties  in  the  search 
for  the  soul  and  his  frequent  disappointments,  he  says, — 

"  At  length  I  awoke,  as  from  a  deep  sleep,  when  I  discov- 
ered that  nothing  is  farther  removed  from  the  human  under- 
standing than  what  at  the  same  time  is  really  present  to  it ; 
and  that  nothing  is  more  present  to  it  than  what  is  universal, 
prior,  and  superior ;  since  this  enters  into  every  particular, 
and  into  everything  posterior  and  inferior.  What  is  more 
omnipresent  than  the  Deity, — in  Him  we  live  and  move  and 
have  our  being,  —  and  yet  what  is  more  remote  from  the 
sphere  of  the  understanding?  .  .  . 

"The  more  any  one  is  perfected  in  judgment,  and  the 
better  he  discerns  the  distinctions  of  things,  the  more  clearly 
will  he  perceive  that  there  is  an  order  in  things,  that  there  are 
degrees  of  order,  and  that  it  is  by  these  alone  he  can  pro- 
gress, and  this  step  by  step,  from  the  lowest  sphere  to  the 
highest,  or  from  the  outermost  to  the  innermost.  For  as 
often  as  Nature  ascends  away  from  external  phenomena,  or 
betakes  herself  inwards,  she  seems  to  have  separated  from  us, 
and  to  have  left  us  altogether  in  the  dark  as  to  what  direc- 
tion she  has  taken.  We  have  need,  therefore,  of  some  science 
to  serve  as  our  guide  in  tracing  out  her  steps, —  to  arrange  all 
things  into  series,  to  distinguish  these  series  into  degrees, 
and  to  contemplate  the  order  of  each  thing  in  the  order  of 


144  PHILOSOPHICAL  STUDIES. 

the  whole.  The  science  which  does  this  I  call  the  Doctrine 
of  Series  and  Degrees,  or  the  Doctrine  of  Order,  .  .  .  [which] 
teaches  the  distinction  and  relation  between  things  superior 
and  inferior,  or  prior  and  posterior.  .  .  . 

"  I  am  strongly  persuaded  that  the  essence  and  nature  of 
the  soul,  its  influx  into  the  body,  and  the  reciprocal  action 
of  the  body  can  never  come  to  demonstration  without  these 
doctrines,  combined  with  a  knowledge  of  anatomy,  pathology, 
and  psychology ;  nay,  even  of  physics,  and  especially  of  the 
auras  of  the  world.  .  .  .  This  and  no  other  is  the  reason 
that  with  diligent  study  and  intense  application  I  have  in- 
vestigated the  anatomy  of  the  body,  and  principally  the 
human,  so  far  as  it  is  known  from  experience ;  and  that  I 
have  followed  the  anatomy  of  all  its  parts,  in  the  same 
manner  as  I  have  here  investigated  the  cortical  substance" 
(vol.  ii.  p.  202). 

This  treatise  on  the  soul  is  an  attempt  at  what  was  fore- 
shadowed in  the  essay  already  cited.  It  is  a  mine  of  beauti- 
ful thoughts,  and  leads  the  mind  up  to  the  highest  aspect  of 
its  subject.1  Yet  the  author's  view  is  not  in  full  accordance 
with  that  found  in  his  later  works.  The  soul  is  to  him  a  most 
subtile,  most  living  fluid,  composed  of  the  first  element  created 
by  its  Maker,  and  vivified  by  Him.  But  though  its  form  is 
"the  form  of  forms,"  it  is  conceived  only  vaguely,  and  gives 
the  reader  no  impression  of  a  substantial  form.  More  satis- 
factory, because  within  the  reach  of  anatomical  research,  is 
his  idea  of  the  constant  flow  of  this  living  essence  into  the 
inmost  fibres  of  the  body,  as  their  inspiring  and  controlling 
life.  We  pass  reluctantly  over  many  pages  that  we  would 

1  S.  T.  Coleridge  notes,  on  reading  the  Economy  of  the  Animal  Kingdom, — 
"  I  remember  nothing  in  Lord  Bacon  superior,  few  passages  equal,  either  in 
depth  of  thought,  or  in  richness,  dignity,  and  felicity  of  diction,  or  in  the  weighti- 
ness  of  the  truths  contained." — Literary  Remains,  May  27,  1827.  Dr.  Spurgin, 
formerly  President  of  the  Royal  College  of  Physicians  in  London,  declared  the 
part  on  the  Soul  "  a  production  unparalleled  for  excellence  in  the  whole  com- 
pass of  human  philosophy." — "Wisdom,  Intelligence,  and  Science,  the  True 
Characteristics  of  Emanuel  Swedenborg. 


THE  CITY   OF   GOD.  145 

like  to  quote,  and  conclude  our  extracts  from  the  Economy  of 
the  Animal  Kingdom  with  Swedenborg's  own  striking  conclu- 
sion. Having  shown  that  the  final  end  can  be  no  other  than 
the  existence  of  a  society  of  souls,  "  in  which  the  end  of  cre- 
ation may  be  regarded  by  God,  and  by  which  God  may  be 
regarded  as  the  end  of  ends,"  he  says, — 

"  If  there  be  a  society  of  souls,  must  not  the  City  of  God 
on  the  universal  earth  be  the  seminary  of  it  ?  The  most  uni- 
versal law  of  its  citizens  is,  that  they  love  their  neighbor  as 
themselves,  and  God  more  than  themselves.  All  other  things 
are  means,  and  are  good  in  proportion  as  they  lead  directly 
to  this  end.  Now,  as  everything  in  the  universe  is  created 
as  a  means  to  this  end,  it  follows  that  the  application  of  the 
means,  and  a  true  regard  of  the  end  in  the  means,  are  the 
sole  constituents  of  a  citizen  [of  the  Holy  City] .  The  Holy 
Scripture  is  the  code  of  rules  for  obtaining  the  end  by  the 
means.  These  rules  are  not  so  dark  or  obscure  as  the  philos- 
ophy of  the  mind  and  the  love  of  self  and  of  the  world  would 
make  them ;  nor  so  deep  and  hidden  but  that  any  sincere  soul, 
which  permits  the  Spirit  of  God  to  govern  it,  may  draw  them 
from  this  pure  fountain, — pure  enough  for  the  use  and  service 
of  the  members  of  the  City  of  God  all  over  the  world, — with- 
out violating  any  form  of  ecclesiastical  government.  It  is 
foretold  that  the  kingdom  of  God  shall  come  ;  that  at  last  the 
guests  shall  be  assembled  at  the  marriage  supper ;  that  the 
wolf  shall  lie  down  with  the  lamb,  the  leopard  with  the  kid, 
the  lion  with  the  ox ;  that  the  young  child  shall  play  with  the 
asp;  that  the  mountain  of  God  shall  rise  above  all  other 
mountains,  and  that  the  Gentile  and  the  stranger  shall  come 
to  it  to  pay  their  worship.  But  see  the  Second  Epistle  of  Paul 
to  Timothy,  chap.  iii.  i-io ;  and  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles, 
chap.  xvii.  18-34." 

Whoever  will  turn  to  these  chapters  and  read  them  care- 
fully, in  connection  with  these  sentences  of  our  author,  will 
be  impressed  with  the  evidence  that  Swedenborg  saw  the  time 
to  be  at  hand  for  our  Lord's  promised  coming  in  His  Holy 

10 


146  PHILOSOPHICAL  STUDIES. 

City,  and  that  he  desired  nothing  more  than  that  his  own 
labors  might  conduce  to  that  end,  yet  with  clear  discernment 
that  the  real  means  lay  in  the  Holy  Scriptures,  of  which  he 
stood  in  awe.  Theology  was  not  yet  his  province  ;  and  when 
he  ventured  an  opinion  on  one  of  its  topics,  he  generally 
referred  to  the  Fathers  for  support.  Yet  he  could  not  refrain 
from  writing  occasionally  on  points  upon  which  new  light 
came  to  Jiim.  While  he  had  still  the  Economy  of  the  Animal 
Kingdom  in  hand,  he  wrote  a  brief  essay  on  "Faith  and 
Good  Works," 1  beginning  thus  :  — 

"  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  is  faith  which  saves,  and 
not  works  separate  from  faith ;  but  where  there  is  a  possi- 
bility of  doing  good  works,  the  question  is,  whether  faith  will 
save  without  them,  according  to  the  dogma  of  the  Lutherans. 
We  reply  that  the  affirmative  seems  compatible  neither  with 
the  Divine  word  of  revelation,  nor  with  human  reason ;  both 
of  which  lead  rather  to  the  conclusion  that  faith  without 
works  is  a  nullity,  and  were  it  anything,  would  condemn,  not 
save"  (p.  9). 

Next,  he  shows  abundantly  from  Scripture  the  inculcation 
of  love  and  charity.  "  Paul,  in  his  Epistle  to  the  Romans, 
says  that  it  is  faith  which  saves,  but  not  action, — meaning 
thereby  not  action  without  faith ;  but  Luther,  in  his  transla- 
tion of  the  Bible,  has  added  to  the  words  of  the  apostle,  faith 
1  alone, y  though  the  latter  word  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  sacred 
text ;  and  I  believe  that  Luther  never  committed  a  greater 
sin  than  when  he  made  this  interpolation ;  but  God  be  the 
judge  "2  (p.  I0). 

1  Posthumous  Tracts,  London,  1847. 

2  By  inadvertence  Swedenborg  wrote  as  Luther's  interpolation,  "without 
works."    But  the  real  interpolation  is  the  German  word  allein,  "alone,"  or 
sola,  as  Luther  himself  gave  it  in  Latin.     That  this  was  not  put  in  by  inad- 
vertence on  Luther's  part  appears  from  his  defiant  words  sent  to  the  Pope : 
"  Should  the  Pope  give  himself  any  useless  annoyance  about  the  word  sola, 
you  may  promptly  reply,  It  is  the  will  of  Dr.  Martin  Luther  that  it  should  be  so." 
— ALZOG:   Univ.  Church  History,  Am.  ed.  iii.  27.     In  a  later  work  Sweden- 
borg states  that  he  heard  Luther  in  the  other  life  confessing  with  regret  that  he 
established  the  doctrine  of  faith  alone  against  the  warning  of  an  angel  of  the  Lord, 
for  the  sake  of  more  completely  separating  from  the  Roman  Church.  (D.  P.  258.) 


PLAN  OF  STUDY. 


147 


From  philosophy  he  now  shows  that  action  is  from  the 
will,  and  that  faith  is  not  a  mere  knowledge,  but  a  living 
principle  implanted  by  the  grace  of  God  in  the  will ;  whence 
action  from  the  will  becomes  active  faith.  Illustrating  this  in 
various  ways,  he  concludes, — 

"That  there  is  no  love  to  God  if  there  be  none  to  the 
neighbor  ;  gr  that  there  is  no  faith,  if  there  be  no  works ;  .  .  . 
therefore  faith  without  works  is  a  phrase  involving  a  contra- 
diction" (p.  15). 

With  some  reluctance,  apparently,  he  admits  that  "in  the 
future  life  love  to  God  may  be  said  to  exist  without  the  per- 
formance of  the  duties  of  love  to  the  neighbor,"  inasmuch  as 
all  the  means  of  "  doing  the  duties  of  love  to  the  neighbor  are 
taken  away,  because  the  body,  which  is  the  subject  of  action, 
is  extinct."  We  shall  be  interested  presently  in  seeing  how 
long  this  notion  clung  to  him,  of  the  non-substantiality  of  the 
spiritual  existence. 

By  no  means  content  with  what  he  had  already  accom- 
plished, Swedenborg,  on  the  completion  of  the  parts  of  the 
Economy  of  the  Animal  Kingdom  published  in  1740  and 
1741,  recommenced  the  study  of  the  brain  from  the  skull, 
and  traversed  the  whole  ground  again  and  again,  adhering 
for  a  while  to  the  following  plan :  — 

" Man  proposes :  God  disposes. 

"1740.  The  brain. 

"1741.  The  muscles,  glands,  and  nerves. 
"1742.  The  eye,  ear,  tongue,  windpipe,  and  lungs. 
"1743.  The  remaining  members  or  viscera  of  the  body. 
"  1 744.  The  members  devoted  to  generation. 
"1745.  The  causes  of  disease. 

"1746.  The  passions  and  affections  of  the  will  [animus] 
and  of  the  mind  [mens]. 

"1747.  -The  City  of  God.     [Civitas  £>et~\." 

Interspersed  with  manuscripts  of  this  period  on  these  sub- 
jects are  found  notes  on  "(i)  Correspondence  by  Harmony; 


148  PHILOSOPHICAL  STUDIES. 

(2)  Correspondence  by  Parables;  (3)  Correspondence  by 
Types;  (4)  Correspondence  by  Fables  and  Dreams;  (5) 
Correspondence  between  Human  and  Divine  Actions ;  (6) 
Representation  in  Oracles ;  ( 7)  Explanation  of  the  Sacred 
Scripture  : "  the  illustrations  throughout  being  taken  from 
Scripture.  These  same  ideas  are  found  again  in  a  concise 
form,  prepared  as  for  publication,  in  forty-eight  pages,  entitled 
"  A  Hieroglyphic  Key  to  Natural  and  Spiritual  Mysteries,  by 
Way  of  Representations  and  Correspondences."  From  this 
little  treatise,  printed  from  the  author's  manuscript  in  1784, 
we  quote  the  following 

"Rules. —  (i)  The  spiritual  world  is  the  region  of  antitypes 
or  exemplars ;  the  animal  kingdom  is  the  sphere  of  images 
and  types ;  nature  is  the  realm  of  shadows  or  resemblances. 
(2)  There  are  many  species  of  representations  or  correspond- 
ences. The  first  species  may  be  termed  harmonic  corre- 
spondence, and  is  exemplified  by  the  relation  subsisting  be- 
tween light,  intelligence,  and  wisdom;  between  effort  and 
will ;  between  modification,  sensation,  imagination,  etc. ;  also 
between  the  images  of  vision,  ideas,  and  thirdly,  reasons ; 
which  are  mutual  correspondents,  representing  terms  in  a 
successive  analogy  or  proportion.  The  second  species  is 
allegorical  correspondence,  and  is  constituted  of  similes,  or 
similitudes.  Thus  it  is  usual  to  explain  spiritual  things  in  a 
natural  manner,  for  all  spiritual  words  are  occult  qualities : 
this  species  of  correspondence  is  of  frequent  occurrence  in 
the  Holy  Scripture.  (3)  The  third  species  is  typical  corre- 
spondence, and  is  effected  by  shadows,  or  semblances, —  as 
in  the  Jewish  Church,  which  shadowed  forth  Christ  and  the 
Christian  Church,  which  latter  again  represented  the  kingdom 
of  God  and  the  society  of  heaven.  The  fourth  is  fabulous 
correspondence,  which  species  was  in  vogue  among  the  an- 
cients, who  wrapped  up  the  deeds  of  their  heroes  in  fabulous 
narrations ;  examples  of  which  are  found  in  the  representa- 
tions of  the  poets,  and  in  those  we  see  in  dreams.  (4)  There 
is  reason  to  believe  that  the  whole  world  is  absolutely  full  of 


RETURN  TO   THE   ROYAL  COLLEGE.  149 

types,  albeit  we  know  so  few  of  them ;  for  the  present  ever 
involves  the  future,  and  contingencies  occur  in  a  certain 
order  and  chain,  inasmuch  as  there  is  undeviating  constancy 
in  the  tenor  and  influence  of  Divine  Providence.  (5)  It  is 
good  to  interpret  the  Holy  Scripture  on  these  principles,  for 
the  Spirit  speaks  spiritually  as  well  as  naturally." 

The  examples  given  are  so  simple  and  obvious  that  we  will 
not  take  space  to  quote  any  of  them.  But  the  author's  seiz- 
ing hold  of  the  principle  of  correspondence,  especially  as  the 
means  of  interpreting  Scripture,  with  his  beginning  of  a  col- 
lection of  materials  for  the  purpose,  is  highly  significant  of  his 
preparation  for  the  work  that  was  to  come.  The  important 
thing,  however,  for  us  now  to  observe  is  the  steady  advance 
of  his  mind,  by  mathematical,  analytical,  rational  investiga- 
tion, through  the  effects  of  this  world  to  their  laws,  to  their 
proximate  causes,  and  thus  to  their  Final  Cause,  —  always 
with  reverence  for  Revelation  and  desire  to  be  in  accordance 
therewith,  but  not  as  yet  taking  it  for  Guide. 

From  November,  1 740,  when  Swedenborg  returned  home 
after  publishing  the  Economy  of  the  Ani?nal  Kingdom,  for  two 
years  and  a  half,  till  the  middle  of  June,  1743,  the  records  of 
the  Royal  College  of  Mines  show  his  regular  attendance  at  its 
sessions,  with  but  occasional  absences  from  illness,  or  from 
attendance  at  sessions  of  the  Diet,  or  on  commissions  of  the 
College.  That  he  was,  however,  still  devoting  his  leisure 
time  to  the  study  of  the  body  and  soul,  and  not,  as  he  had 
expected,  to  the  "Mineral  Kingdom,"  we  may  learn  from  the 
following  letter  addressed  by  him  to  the  Royal  College  of 
Mines,  June  17,1 743  : — 

"  Most  well-born  Baron  and  President,  and  also  well-born 
and  esteemed  Councillors  of  Mines  and  Assessors,  —  A  few 
months  ago  I  applied  most  humbly  to  his  Royal  Majesty  for 
gracious  leave  of  absence,  to  make  a  journey  abroad  on  my 
own  resources  for  the  purpose  of  seeing  through  the  press  a 
work  which  is  the  continuation  and  end  of  one  which  had 


ISO 


PHILOSOPHICAL  STUDIES. 


been  begun  and  promised ;  when  I  received  orally  the  gra- 
cious answer  through  Mr.  Boneauschold,  the  Secretary  of 
State,  that  my  application  had  been  graciously  entertained, 
but  that  on  a  point  of  order  it  ought  to  be  announced  first  to 
the  College.  Now,  as  ever  since  my  return  I  have  in  ad- 
dition to  my  official  duties  constantly  labored  to  accomplish 
this  work,  and  as  I  have  now  completed  it  so  far  that,  after 
collecting  some  necessary  information  in  the  libraries  abroad, 
I  shall  be  able  to  publish  it  at  once  and  thus  fulfil  what  I 
have  promised,  and  what  is,  I  find,  desired  by  many  abroad, — 
I  therefore  entreat  the  honorable  Royal  College  in  the  most 
humble  manner  that  it  kindly  accede  to  my  wishes.  As  far  as 
my  individual  preference  and  pleasure  are  concerned,  I  can 
assure  you  that  I  should  a  thousand  times  prefer  to  stay  at 
home  in  my  native  country,  where  it  'would  be  a  pleasure  to 
me  to  serve  in  so  illustrious  a  College,  and  to  contribute  my 
own  small  share  to  the  public  good ;  at  the  same  time  to 
watch  opportunities  for  improving  my  condition  and  attend  to 
the  little  property  I  have  acquired,  and  thus  live  at  home  and 
have  pleasant  times,  which,  as  long  as  my  health  and  means 
with  God's  help  continue,  nothing  would  disturb, —  than  to 
travel  abroad,  exposing  myself,  at  my  own  by  no  means  in- 
considerable expense,  to  danger  and  vexation,  especially  in 
these  unquiet  times,  and  undergoing  severe  brain-work  and 
other  hard  labor,  with  the  probability  of  meeting  in  the  end 
with  more  unfavorable  than  favorable  judgments.  But,  not- 
withstanding all  this,  I  am  influenced  interiorly  by  the  desire 
and  longing  to  produce  during  my  lifetime  something  real, 
which  may  be  of  use  in  the  general  scientific  world  and  also 
to  posterity,  and  in  this  way  to  be  useful  to  and  even  to  please 
my  native  country ;  and,  if  my  wishes  are  realized,  to  obtain 
honor  for  it.  But  if  I  any  longer  delay  the  carrying  out  of 
my  design,  I  might  as  well  give  it  up  altogether,  as  far  as  the 
increase  in  honor  and  the  decrease  of  my  own  interest  in  the 
work  are  concerned.  All  this  depends  entirely  upon  the  most 
honorable  Royal  College's  advocating  my  well-meant  pur- 


NEW  LEAVE   OF   ABSENCE.  15  j 

pose  with  his  Majesty,  by  expressing  its  consent  and  approval 
with  regard  to  my  intended  journey ;  of  which  I  entertain  the 
less  doubt,  as  the  honorable  Royal  College  has  always  been 
inclined  to  promote  useful  designs,  and  especially  as  I  have 
never  yet  asked,  nor  intend  to  ask,  anything  from  the  public 
in  return  for  all  the  trouble  and  the  great  expenses  I  am  in- 
curring, but  on  the  contrary,  for  the  sake  of  promoting  this 
well-meant  purpose,  have  given  up  of  my  own  accord  half  of 
my  salary,  and  consequently  an  income  that  already  amounts 
to  twelve  thousand  six  hundred  dalers  in  copper,  and  as  I  am 
willing  to  leave  this  at  your  disposal  on  the  same  terms  as 
before,  so  that  during  my  absence  nothing  may  be  neglected 
in  the  Royal  College  on  my  account.  With  regard  to  the 
time  that  will  be  required,  I  cannot  determine  anything,  in- 
asmuch as  the  work  which  will  be  published  will  amount  to 
about  five  hundred  sheets,  and  the  despatch  with  which  this 
can  be  done  will  depend  on  the  publisher  and  the  printer ; 
but  I  promise  that  on  my  own  part  the  most  indefatigable 
industry  shall  be  applied ;  nay,  I  am  willing,  if  it  is  desired, 
to  keep  a  journal  of  my  work,  and  to  show  that  no  time  is 
wasted.  Moreover,  it  is  my  own  chief  desire  to  bring  this 
work  to  a  close,  and  to  return  to  my  country,  to  my  office, 
and  to  my  property,  where  I  shall  in  tranquillity  and  ease 
continue  my  larger  work,  the  Regnum  Minerale,  and  thus  be 
of  actual  use  to  the  public  at  large  in  those  matters  which 
properly  belong  to  the  Royal  College. 

"  I  remain,  and  shall  continue  to  remain,  with  profound  re- 
spect, most  well-born  Baron  and  President,  and  most  honor- 
able Royal  College,  your  most  humble  servant, 

"EMAN.  SWEDENBORG." 

The  Royal  College  of  Mines  commended  to  King  Frederic 
the  Assessor's  request,  and  on  the  4th  of  July  it  was  graciously 
granted.  Until  July  2ist  Swedenborg  continued  in  attend- 
ance on  his  duties,  but  on  that  day  left  Stockholm,  arriving  at 
Ystad  on  the  2  yth.  On  the  6th  of  August  he  was  at  Stralsund, 


152  PHILOSOPHICAL  STUDIES. 

examining  the  fortifications  and  the  water- works.  On  the  1 2th 
he  was  at  Hamburg,  and  was  presented  to  his  Royal  Highness 
Adolphus  Frederic,  to  whom  he  submitted  the  contents  of 
the  book  he  was  about  to  have  printed,  and  showed  reviews 
of  his  former  work.  He  had  at  this  time  accumulated  a  large 
pile  of  manuscript  on  the  anatomy  of  the  human  body  and 
other  subjects,  including,  in  addition  to  what  he  was  about  to 
publish  as  The  Animal  Kingdom,  essays  on  the  "  Declination 
of  the  Magnetic  Needle,"  "Corpuscular  Philosophy,"  "Uni- 
versal Philosophy,"  "The  Bones  of  the  Head,"  "The  Red 
Blood,"  "The  Muscles  of  the  Face,"  "The  Animal  Spirit," 
"Sensation,"  "Action,"  "Common  Sense,"  "The  Origin 
and  Propagation  of  the  Soul,"  and  several  others,  together 
with  six  hundred  and  thirty-six  pages  on  the  "  Anatomy  of 
the  Brain,"  and  six  hundred  on  "  Rational  Psychology." 

With  new  views  opening  to  him  on  so  many  subjects,  or 
on  so  many  branches  leading  up  to  the  great  subject  he  had 
in  ultimate  contemplation, — the  soul  and  its  relation  to  its 
Creator, —  it  is  not  strange  that  in  details  our  author's  plans 
were  constantly  changing.  Among  his  manuscripts  are  found 
half-a-dozen  different  titles  for  what  was  finally  published  as 
the  Economy  of  the  Animal  Kingdom.  For  the  work  now  in 
hand,  The  Animal  Kingdom,  he  at  one  time  proposed  no 
less  than  seventeen  parts,  of  which  six  related  to  the  soul. 
The  materials  for  the  whole  seventeen  were  in  preparation,  and 
to  a  great  extent  already  written  out ;  but  during  the  autumn 
months  of  1 743,  spent  mostly  in  the  libraries  of  Amsterdam 
and  Leyden,  they  became  so  voluminous  that  he  published  at 
this  time  only  the  first  two.  These  made  a  handsome  thick 
quarto  volume,  published  at  the  Hague  in  1744.  A  third 
part  was  published  the  next  year  at  London,  and  this,  for 
reasons  we  shall  presently  see,  was  the  last  of  the  work  pub- 
lished by  the  author. 

The  Animal  Kingdom  ["Regnum  Animale"]  was,  in  a 
sort,  a  continuation  of  the  previous  work,  the  Economy  of  the 
Animal  Kingdom,  but  treated  in  a  somewhat  different  man- 


THE  ANIMAL  KINGDOM. 


153 


ner.  We  seem  to  detect  in  it  a  somewhat  less  confident  tone, 
more  patience,  and  greater  contentment  with  quietly  and 
closely  observing  the  immediate  uses  of  the  several  parts  of 
the  body,  while  trusting  that  he  shall  be  led  in  the  end  to  that 
of  which  he  is  in  search. 

"Not  very  long  since,"  he  says  in  his  Prologue,  "I  pub- 
lished the  Economy  of  the  Animal  Kingdom,  .  .  .  and  before 
traversing  the  whole  field  in  detail,  I  made  a  rapid  passage  to 
the  soul  and  put  forth  an  essay  respecting  it.  But  on  con- 
sidering the  matter  more  deeply,  I  found  that  I  had  directed 
my  course  thither  both  too  hastily  and  too  fast,  —  after  hav- 
ing explored  the  blood  only  and  its  peculiar  organs.  I  took 
the  step  impelled  by  an  ardent  desire  for  knowledge." 

Now  he  proposes  to  traverse  the  whole  kingdom  of  the 
body,  hoping  that,  by  bending  his  course  inwards  continually, 
he  may  open  all  the  doors  that  lead  to  her  and  at  length,  by 
the  Divine  permission,  contemplate  the  soul  herself.  But  he 
supposes  the  objection  made  "  that  all  those  things  which 
transcend  our  present  state,  are  matters  for  faith  and  not  for 
intellect;  "  that  the  intellect  should  be  "contented  with  this 
its  lot.  and  not  aspire  to  higher  things,  which,  inasmuch  as 
they  are  sanctuaries  and  matters  of  Revelation,  exist  to  faith 
only.  .  .  .  Where  there  is  faith,  what  need  is  there  of  demon- 
stration ?  .  .  .  Faith  is  above  all  demonstration,  because  it  is 
above  all  the  philosophy  of  the  human  mind."  His  reply 
is,  "  I  grant  this  ;  nor  would  I  persuade  any  one  who  compre- 
hends these  high  truths  by  faith,  to  attempt  to  comprehend 
them  by  his  intellect :  let  him  abstain  from  my  books.  Whoso 
believes  Revelation  implicitly,  without  consulting  the  intellect, 
is  the  happiest  of  mortals,  the  nearest  to  heaven,  and  at  once 
a  native  of  both  worlds.  But  these  pages  of  mine  are 
written  with  a  view  to  those  only  who  never  believe  anything 
but  what  they  can  receive  with  the  intellect ;  consequently 
who  boldly  invalidate  and  are  fain  to  deny  the  existence 
of  all  supereminent  things,  sublimer  than  themselves,  — as  the 
soul  itself,  and  what  follows  therefrom :  its  life,  immortality, 


154 


PHILOSOPHICAL  STUDIES. 


heaven,  etc Consequently  they  honor  and  worship  nature, 

the  world,  and  themselves ;  in  other  respects  they  compare 
themselves  to  brutes,  and  think  that  they  shall  die  in  the  same 
manner  as  brutes,  and  their  souls  exhale  and  evaporate  :  thus 
they  rush  fearlessly  into  wickedness.  For  these  persons  only 
I  am  anxious ;  and,  as  I  said  before,  for  them  I  indite,  and 
to  them  I  dedicate  my  work.  For  when  I  shall  have  demon- 
strated truths  themselves  by  the  analytic  method,  I  hope 
that  those  debasing  shadows,  or  material  clouds,  which  darken 
the  sacred  temple  of  the  mind  will  be  dispersed ;  and  that 
thus  at  last,  under  the  favor  of  God,  who  is  the  Sun  of  Wis- 
dom, an  access  will  be  opened  and  a  way  laid  down  to  faith. 
My  ardent  desire  and  zeal  for  this  end  is  what  urges  and  ani- 
mates me"  (Prologue  to  part  i.  pp.  12-15). 

Swedenborg's  purpose,  and  the  work  given  him  to  do,  may 
be  found  further  illustrated  in  the  following  passages  from  the 
Epilogue  to  Part  Second  of  The  Animal  Kingdom :  — 

"The  lungs  in  the  first  flower  and  golden  age  of  their  life, 
or  when  the  body  and  the  thorax  were  enveloped  and  con- 
fined by  manifold  swathings  in  the  mother's  womb,  were  un- 
able as  yet  to  expand,  still  less  to  open  the  mouth  of  their 
larynx ;  but  together  with  the  brains,  the  heart,  and  the  mem- 
bers attendant  thereupon,  they  passed  and  beguiled  their  day, 
which  was  nine  months  long,  in  the  deepest  peace,  and  as  it 
were  in  the  temple  of  concord.  At  this  time  the  soul,  under 
the  auspices  of  the  Supreme  Mind,  by  means  of  the  brains 
and  their  fibres,  and  in  the  ultimate  sphere  by  means  of 
the  heart  and  its  vessels,  ruled  and  governed  the  helm  of  the 
kingdom ;  it  was  the  only  principle  of  all  motions  :  the  de- 
terminations from  this  principle  flowed  through  adopted  and 
organically  constructed  forms,  serving  in  orderly  sequence 
and  manifold  succession  as  first,  intermediate,  and  ultimate 
causes ;  hence  all  efforts,  forces,  actions,  and  modes  thereof, 
agreeably  to  the  order  appointed  by  nature,  proceeded  con- 
stantly from  the  first  spheres  to  the  last,  or  from  the  innermost 
to  the  outermost.  Thus  the  body  was  the  body  of  its  soul, 


THE  ANIMAL  KINGDOM.  155 

and  the  subject  of  the  auspices  of  the  Supreme  Mind.  But 
when  the  period  of  these  destinies  had  passed  away,  and  the 
manikin,  bursting  the  swathings  and  bars  of  the  womb,  rushed 
forth  upon  the  theatre  of  the  great  world,  the  state  of  life 
was  instantly  changed,  and  the  hinges  of  the  determinations, 
forces,  and  motions  were  inverted  and  bent  backward  against 
the  order  of  the  former  life ;  namely,  from  the  outermost 
spheres  to  the  innermost,  or  from  the  body  and  its  powers 
inwards,  towards  the  proximate  and  immediate  powers  of  the 
principle  or  soul.  In  order  that,  after  this  inversion,  the  last 
causes  might  take  the  first  place,  the  lungs  were  opened ;  the 
lowest  atmosphere  of  the  world  was  admitted  through  the 
nostrils  and  the  larynx  into  the  trachea  and  the  bronchial 
pipes ;  the  muscles  of  the  thorax  were  unfolded ;  the  ribs, 
with  the  vertebrae  and  sternum,  were  moved  from  their  places 
to  and  fro ;  and  the  reciprocal  actions  proceeding  from  these 
ultimate  causes,  or  from  the  body,  were  transferred  through 
the  diaphragm,  the  pleura,  and  the  mediastinum,  into  the  in- 
nermost sphere  of  the  lungs,  whither  also  the  atmosphere 
was  transferred  through  the  larynx.  On  the  instant  the  blood 
also,  which  rushed  from  the  vence  caves  into  the  right  auricle 
and  cavern  of  the  heart,  began  to  be  the  proximate  cause  of 
the  motions  or  pulses,  even  through  the  whole  arterial  sys- 
tem ;  the  proximate  cause  having  previously  been  the  fibre 
and  the  spirit  of  the  fibre.  At  the  same  time  the  organs  of 
the  five  senses  were  opened,  to  take  up  on  the  first  threshold 
the  images,  tones,  forms,  and  all  the  play  and  manifestation 
of  the  circumambient  world,  and  convey  them  inwards  even 
to  the  soul.  Thus  we  entered,  or  rather  fell,  from  the  highest 
life  into  the  lowest,  the  life  of  the  body,  and  of  the  world. 

"Now,  when  the  body  undertook  to  manage  the  reins 
which  the  soul  relinquished ;  when  the  machine  was  so  com- 
pletely inverted  that  the  powers  flowed  and  rolled  contrari- 
wise, or  upwards  instead  of  downwards, — then,  in  order  that 
the  machine  itself  might  not  be  prostrated  and  perish  by  its 
forces,  and  in  order  that  the  life  that  was  now  transferred  to 


1.56  PHILOSOPHICAL  STUDIES. 

the  body  might  not  be  dissipated  and  come  to  an  end,  it  was 
provided  and  appointed  that  the  lungs  should  perform  a 
mediatorial  office  between  the  soul  and  the  body ;  wherefore, 
to  bring  them  into  concord,  the  ordinances  that  follow  were 
solemnly  decreed." 

Here  follow  eight  laws  governing  the  reciprocal  action  of 
the  lungs  and  of  the  heart  and  brains,  at  too  great  length  for 
our  space.  Then  he  continues  :  — 

"Since,  therefore,  we  are  inaugurated  into  this  life,  that 
tends  backwards  from  the  last  stages  of  the  course  to  the  first, 
the  consequence  is  that  we  are  bora  in  the  densest  obscurity, 
ignorant  of  all  things,  and  the  merest  of  infants  ;  for  the  forces 
of  the  body,  which  are  now  the  first  causes,  feel  nothing  of 
themselves.  Thus  we  live  but  little,  if  at  all,  in  early  infancy, 
for  to  feel  is  to  live ;  yet  this  very  life  increases,  grows,  and 
approximates  to  perfection,  as  age  advances." 

Describing  then  how  sensations  become,  by  effort  from 
within,  first  images  of  sense,  then  sensual  ideas,  then  imagina- 
tive and  at  last  intellectual  ideas,  so  that,  by  means  of  the 
senses,  we  are  led  from  the  darkness  of  ignorance  more  or 
ss  into  the  light  of  knowledge,  he  says, — 

"  There  is  in  the  cerebrum  an  eminent  sensorium,  and  inti- 
mate recesses  therein,  whither  these  sensual  rays  of  the  body 
ascend,  and  where  they  can  mount  no  further  :  there  the  soul 
resides,  clad  in  the  noblest  garment  of  organization,  and  sits  to 
meet  the  ideas  emerging  thither,  and  receives  them  as  guests. 
This  high  and  noble  place  is  the  innermost  sensorium ;  and 
it  is  the  boundary  at  which  the  ascent  of  the  life  of  the  body 
ceases,  and  the  boundary  from  which  that  of  the  soul,  con- 
sidered as  a  spiritual  essence,  begins.  Here  especially  the 
soul  inspires  her  power,  and  communicates  the  faculty  where- 
by images  become  ideas." 

But  to  acquire  the  power  of  thinking  clearly  from  the  soul, 
and  to  distinguish  what  is  in  harmony  with  her  nature,  thus 
with  real  truth,  there  is  need  of  abundant  store  of  observa- 
tion, or  scientific  fact,  an  assiduous  training  of  the  faculties, 


THE   ANIMAL  KINGDOM. 


157 


and  a  "  constant  exercise  of  the  gift  itself,  till  it  becomes  a 
part  of  our  nature.  Above  all  things  we  must  aim  by  educa- 
tion to  become  thoroughly  imbued  with  the  power  of  recall- 
ing the  rational  mind  from  the  senses  and  the  animal  mind  ; 
in  short,  from  cares,  from  the  lusts  of  the  body,  the  allure- 
ments of  the  world,  and  thus  as  it  were  from  our  lower 
selves.  ...  By  these  means  we  mount  to  our  higher  mind, 
or  to  the  soul,  which  then  becomes  accessible  and  infuses 
power." 

"If  we  wish,"  says  our  author,  "to  invite  real  truths, 
whether  natural,  or  moral,  or  spiritual  (for  they  all  make  com- 
mon cause  by  means  of  correspondence  and  representation), 
into  the  sphere  of  our  rational  minds,  it  is  necessary  that  we 
extinguish  the  impure  fires  of  the  body,  and  thereby  our  own 
delusive  lights,  and  submit  and  allow  our  minds,  unmolested 
by  the  influences  of  the  body,  to  be  illuminated  with  the  rays 
of  the  spiritual  power :  then  for  the  first  time  truths  flow  in ; 
for  they  all  emanate  from  that  power  as  their  peculiar  foun- 
tain. Nor  when  they  are  present,  are  there  wanting  a  mul- 
titude of  signs  by  which  they  attest  themselves ;  namely,  the 
varied  forms  of  sweetness  and  delight  attendant  upon  truth 
attained,  and  affecting  the  mind  as  the  enjoyments  that  result 
from  the  harmonies  of  external  objects  affect  the  lower  and 
sensitive  faculties  of  the  body :  for  as  soon  as  ever  a  truth 
shines  forth,  such  a  mind  exults  and  rejoices  ;  and  this  joy  is 
the  ground  of  its  first  assent,  and  of  its  first  delighted  smile ; 
but  the  actual  confirmation  of  the  truth  proceeds  from  its  ac- 
cordance with  numerous  reasons,  confirmed  by  experience  by 
means  of  the  sciences,  and  each  point  of  which  accordance 
receives  a  similar  assent, — the  mind  going  onwards  the  while, 
with  assiduous  attention  and  pains,  by  the  analytic  way,  or 
from  effects  to  causes.  In  addition  to  these  delights  there  are 
still  more  universal  signs, —  as  the  desire  and  the  passion  for 
attaining  truth,  and  the  love  of  the  truth  attained,  not  for  the 
sake  of  our  own  advantage,  but  for  that  of  the  advantage  of 
human  society ;  and  neither  for  the  glory  of  ourselves  or  of 


PHILOSOPHICAL  STUDIES. 

society,  but  of  the  Supreme  Divinity  alone.  This  is  the  only 
way  to  truths  :  other  things  as  means,  which  are  infinite,  God 
Omnipotent  provides." 

Inquiring,  then,  into  the  ends,  or  purposes  of  the  provision 
by  which  it  is  ordained  that  man  should  ascend  from  lowest 
and  outermost  to  highest  and  innermost,  he  unfolds  them 
comprehensively,  concluding  with  these, — "that  in  this  ulti- 
mate circle  of  nature  we  may  receive  the  wonders  of  the 
world,  and  as  we  ascend  the  steps  and  ladders  of  intelligence 
receive  still  greater  wonders,  in  all  their  significance  and  with 
full  vision ;  and  that  at  length  we  may  comprehend  by  faith 
those  profound  miracles  that  cannot  be  comprehended  by  the 
intellect ;  and  from  all  these  things,  in  the  deep  hush  of  awe 
and  amazement,  venerate  and  adore  the  omnipotence  and 
providence  of  the  Supreme  Creator ;  and  thus,  in  the  con- 
templation of  Him,  regard  as  vanity  everything  that  we  leave 
behind  us.  ...  The  last  end,  which  also  is  the  first,  is  that 
our  minds,  at  length  become  forms  of  intelligence  and  inno- 
cence, may  constitute  a  spiritual  heaven,  a  kingdom  of  God, 
or  a  holy  society,  in  which  the  end  of  creation  may  be  re- 
garded by  God,  and  by  which  God  may  be  regarded  as  the 
end  of  ends.  From  infinite  wisdom,  added  to  equal  power, 
and  this  to  equal  providence,  such  perpetual  end  flows  con- 
stantly, from  the  first  end  to  the  last,  and  from  the  last  to  the 
first,  through  the  intermediate  ends,  that  declare  the  glory  of 
the  Divinity."  To  this  he  adds  in  a  note,  "  I  shall  treat  of 
these  subjects,  by  the  blessing  of  God,  in  the  last  of  my 
analytic  Parts.  But  as  yet  we  are  dwelling  in  the  mere  effects 
of  the  world,  which  exhibit  the  amazing  and  Divine  circle  of 
these  ends  before  the  contemplation  of  our  very  senses" 
(part  ii.  p.  331-366). 

It  would  be  aside  from  our  main  duty,  were  it  within  our 
compass,  to  follow  our  author  through  his  analysis  of  "  the 
mere  effects  of  the  world,"  of  the  organs  of  the  body,  their 
microscopical  structure,  their  inter-relation  and  function,  and 
their  correspondential  relation  with  the  organs  and  functions 


THE  ANIMAL   KINGDOM. 

of  the  mind.  Something  more  we  shall  have  to  say  of  these 
studies  before  we  have  done ;  but  what  interests  us  most  in 
them  now  is  the  Divinely  ordered  preparation  effected  by 
them  in  Swedenborg's  own  mind,  and  in  the  whole  circle  of 
minds  connected  with  his, —  a  circle  not  limited  by  his  vision 
nor  by  his  age, — for  comprehending  the  mysteries  of  the 
Lord's  presence  and  dealings  with  men.  In  view  of  this  we 
do  not  care  to  dwell  on  the  scientific  value  of  the  works,  but 
will  simply  say  that  they  were  based  on  the  investigations  of 
the  great  anatomists  of  their  day ;  and  that,  by  the  author's 
philosophic  informing  power,  and  from  his  point  of  view  of 
the  life  inflowing  from  the  soul,  the  perusal  of  them  is  like 
looking  with  sympathetic  penetrating  eyes  into  the  living 
body,  full  of  beauty,  energy,  and  motion, —  in  place  of  dis- 
secting the  cadaver.  This  is  why  many  secrets  of  the  human 
frame  of  later  discovery  are  anticipated  in  these  pages,  though 
together  with  them,  at  least  in  the  earlier  "Economy"  may 
be  found  some  errors  of  fact. 

With  one  more  specimen  of  its  style  and  drift,  we  must 
conclude  our  extracts  from  what  was  published  by  our  author 
of  The  Animal  Kingdom  :  — 

"  As  the  blood  is  continually  making  its  circle  of  life,  that 
is  to  say,  is  in  a  constant  revolution  of  birth  and  death;  as 
it  dies  in  its  old  age,  and  is  regenerated  or  born  anew ;  and 
as  the  veins  solicitously  gather  together  the  whole  of  its  cor- 
poreal part,  and  the  lymphatics  of  its  spirituous  part,  and 
successively  bring  it  back,  refect  it  with  new  chyle,  and  restore 
it  to  the  pure  and  youthful  blood ;  and  as  the  kidneys  con- 
stantly purge  it  of  impurities,  and  restore  its  pure  parts  to  the 
blood, —  so  likewise  man,  who  lives  at  once  in  body  and  spirit 
while  he  lives  in  the  blood,  must  undergo  the  same  fortunes 
generally,  and  in  the  progress  of  his  regeneration  must  daily 
do  the  like.  Such  a  perpetual  symbolical  representation  is 
there  of  spiritual  life  in  corporeal  life ;  as  likewise  a  per- 
petual typical  representation  of  the  soul  in  the  body.  In 
this  consists  the  searching  of  the  heart  and  the  reins,  which 


l6O  PHILOSOPHICAL  STUDIES. 

is  a  thing  purely  Divine."  [NOTE.]  "In  our  Doctrine  of 
Representations  and  Correspondences,  we  shall  treat  of  both 
these  symbolical  and  typical  representations,  and  of  the  as- 
tonishing things  which  occur,  I  will  not  say  in  the  living 
body  only,  but  throughout  nature,  and  which  correspond 
so  entirely  to  supreme  and  spiritual  things  that  one  would 
swear  that  the  physical  world  is  purely  symbolical  of  the 
spiritual  world, —  insomuch  that  if  we  choose  to  express  any 
natural  truth  in  physical  and  definite  vocal  terms,  and  to  con- 
vert these  terms  only  into  the  corresponding  spiritual  terms, 
we  shall  by  this  means  elicit  a  spiritual  truth  or  theological 
dogma,  in  place  of  the  physical  truth  or  precept ;  although 
no  mortal  would  have  predicted  that  anything  of  the  kind 
could  possibly  arise  by  bare  literal  transposition,  inasmuch 
as  the  one  precept,  considered  separately  from  the  other, 
appears  to  have  absolutely  no  relation  to  it.  I  intend  here- 
after to  communicate  a  number  of  examples  of  such  corre- 
spondences, together  with  a  vocabulary  containing  the  terms 
of  spiritual  things,  as  well  as  of  the  physical  things  for  which 
they  are  to  be  substituted.  This  symbolism  pervades  the 
living  body  ;  and  I  have  chosen  simply  to  indicate  it  here,  for 
the  purpose  of  pointing  out  the  spiritual  meaning  of  searching 
the  reins"  (part  i.  p.  451). 

Of  the  principles  involved  in  this  treatment  of  the  subject, 
Dr.  Wilkinson  well  says,  in  the  Introductory  Remarks  to  his 
translation  of  The  Animal  Kingdom, — 

"The  Doctrine  of  Series  and  Degrees,  in  conjunction  with 
that  of  Correspondence  and  Representation,  teaches  that 
there  is  a  universal  analogy  between  all  the  spheres  of  crea- 
tion, material,  mental,  and  spiritual ;  and  also  between  nature 
and  all  things  in  human  society.  The  circulation  of  uses  in 
the  body  perfectly  represents  the  free  intercourse  of  man  with 
man,  and  the  free  interchange  of  commodities  between  nation 
and  nation.  The  operations  that  go  on  in  the  body  analogi- 
cally involve  all  the  departments  of  human  industry ;  nay,  and 
infinitely  more,  both  in  subdivision,  unity,  and  perfection. 


TREATISE   ON   THE   BRAIN.  l6l 

There  is  not  an  art  or  trade,  whether  high  or  low,  so  long  as 
it  be  of  good  use,  but  the  Creator  Himself  has  adopted  and 
professed  it  in  the  human  system.  Nay,  in  the  richness  of 
His  pervading  love,  the  very  prerogatives  of  the  mind  are 
representatively  applicable  to  the  body.  End,  cause,  and 
effect,  as  existing  in  Himself,  are  represented  in  the  latter  as 
well  as  in  the  former.  Liberty  and  rationality,  the  universal 
principles  of  humanity,  are  transplanted  by  analogy  from  the 
mind  into  the  body.  It  presents  an  analogon  of  liberty,  in 
that  every  organ,  part,  and  particle  can  successfully  exercise 
an  attraction  for  those  fluids  that  are  adapted  to  its  life  and 
uses ;  of  rationality,  in  that  it  acts  as  though  it  took  cogni- 
zance of  the  adaptability,  and  operates  upon  the  materials 
demanded  and  supplied  in  such  a  manner  as  will  best  secure 
the  well-being  of  itself  and  of  the  whole  system." 

In  addition  to  what  Swedenborg  himself  published  of  The 
Animal  Kingdom,  several  parts  have  been  published  in  Ger- 
many and  England,  from  time  to  time  ;  and  now,  with  amaz- 
ing industry  and  much  skill,  the  Rev.  R.  L.  Tafel  has  deci- 
phered and  translated  all  of  the  manuscripts  left  by  Sweden- 
borg on  the  brain.  From  these,  together  with  some  matter 
on  the  same  subject  already  printed,  and  copious  confirma- 
tory notes  drawn  from  later  writers,  he  has  in  course  of  pub- 
lication three  thick  octavo  volumes,  constituting  a  complete 
treatise  on  the  anatomy  and  functions  of  the  brain,  which, 
we  have  the  authority  of  experts  for  saying,  is  full  of  vital 
suggestion  supported  by  recent  researches,  so  far  as  these 
extend.1  Of  its  theory  Dr.  Wilkinson  says, — 

"  Doctrine  is  the  ever-potent  father  of  Svvedenborg's  the- 
ory,—  the  doctrine,  namely,  that  there  is  a  God,  who  is  a 
Creator ;  and  that  God  is  the  Author  of  the  human  soul ; 
and  that  He  made  the  living  soul  to  be  creative  in  its  own 
finite  sphere ;  and  further,  that  the  soul,  in  order  to  embody 
itself,  under  God  immanent  made  the  brain,  which  is  thus  the 

1  The  Brain,  Considered  Anatomically,  Physiologically,  and  Philosophically. 
Vol.  i.  James  Speirs,  London,  1882. 


162  PHILOSOPHICAL  STUDIES. 

anthropoplasm  of  the  human  frame  upon  earth.  The  brain, 
from  its  first  principles,  conceived,  through  the  Divine  wisdom 
by  the  soul  in  it,  all  the  details  of  its  own  form,  fitting  it  to  be 
the  abode  of  the  mind  in  all  its  faculties.  .  .  .  The  soul  also, 
which  makes  the  brain  mechanic,  inventive,  contriving  for  it- 
self, imprints  upon  it  with  the  form  of  motion  also  the  power ; 
and  in  an  order  and  determination  stupendous  like  the  gal- 
axies of  heaven,  it  commands  a  universal  motion  as  the  pulse 
and  radiance  of  a  universal  life.  And  as  there  can  be  no 
motion  without  a  corresponding  and  adequate  something 
moved,  there  are  fluids  which  are  so  eminent  and  so  ordinate 
that  they  can  be  embrained  and  ensouled,  and  give  life  to  the 
avenues  of  the  brain,  to  the  body  and  the  blood." 

But  let  us  hear  Swedenborg  himself :  — 

"  The  soul  is  properly  the  universal  essence  of  its  body. 
The  soul  is  the  only  thing  substantial  and  essential  in  its 
body.  From  it  are  derived  and  born  all  the  substances  and 
essences  which  are  called  composite  and  corporeal.  For  what 
can  truly  be,  unless  it  be  from  a  thing  prior,  more  simple  and 
more  unique,  which  is  the  beginning  of  the  rest  ?  That  which 
gives  to  others  being  and  existence,  must  itself  be.  It  can- 
not be  produced  from  modes,  accidents,  and  qualities  without 
a  subject  and  form,  and  consequently  without  a  real  essence 
and  substance.  The  soul  also  is  peculiar  or  proper,  and  there 
is  not  one  universal  soul  for  all ;  so  that  the  soul  of  one  can- 
not belong  to  the  body  of  another ;  for —  what  is  to  be  de- 
monstrated, namely  —  the  very  form  of  the  body  is  the  result 
of  its  essential  determination,  or  the  body  itself  represents  the 

soul  as  it  were  in  an  image The  higher  or  highest  universal 

essence  is  the  soul,  the  lower  is  the  animal  spirit,  and  the  third 
the  blood.  The  highest  essence  imparts  being,  the  power  of 
acting  and  life  to  the  lower,  this  imparts  the  same  in  a  like 
manner  to  the  lowest ;  the  lowest,  consequently,  exists  and 
subsists  from  the  first  by  means  of  the  middle.  .  .  .  The  de- 
terminations of  the  highest  universal  essence  of  the  bodily 
system  are  those  fibres  which  are  the  simplest  of  all,  and  which 


ON   THE  SOUL.  163 

are  like  rays  of  the  soul,  and  the  first  designations  of  forms. 
The  determinations  of  the  lower  universal  essence  are  those 
fibres  which  are  derived  from  the  most  simple;  but  those 
of  the  lowest  are  the  arterial  and  venous  vessels.  As  the 
essences,  so  also  the  determinations  are  in  turn  derived  from 
one  another,  the  higher  imparting  being  to  the  lower.  From 
these  determinations,  or  from  these  determining  essences,  all 
the  organic  viscera,  and  consequently  the  whole  bodily  sys- 
tem, is  woven  and  formed  "  (p.  65). 

"  It  is  the  cerebrum  through  which  the  intercourse  between 
the  soul  and  the  body  is  established;  for  it  is  as  it  were  the  link 
and  the  uniting  medium.  From  what  follows,  it  will  appear 
that  the  soul  is  in  the  cerebrum  as  it  were  in  its  heaven  and 
Olympus,  although  it  is  essentially  everywhere,  and  present  in 
every  individual  part.  In  the  cerebrum,  however,  is  formed 
as  it  were  its  court  and  palace  chamber,  from  which  it  looks 
around  on  all  things  belonging  to  it,  and  determines  them 
into  act  in  agreement  with  its  intuition  "  (p.  67). 

One  other  section  of  the  manuscript  left  by  Swedenborg  as 
a  part  of  The  Animal  Kingdom,  under  the  head  of  "  Rational 
Psychology,"  1  we  must  not  pass  without  notice.  In  truth, 
if  we  should  give  the  substance  of  it  as  the  climax  of  our 
author's  studies  into  the  nature  of  man,  of  his  soul,  and  of  its 
relation  to  the  Creator,  not  a  reader  but  would  say,  Well 
done,  wise  and  excellent  Swedenborg;  you  have  not  lived 
and  studied  in  vain.  Indeed,  we  know  very  well  that  many 
would  praise  loudly  these  essays  on  the  various  motives  and 
faculties  of  the  body  and  mind  and  soul,  written  in  Sweden- 
borg's  own  name,  who  feel  constrained  to  be  chary  of  their 
commendation  of  what  he  afterwards  published  as  not  of  his 
own  wisdom.  But  for  the  same  reason  that  our  author  him- 
self laid  these  writings  aside,  while  he  devoted  all  his  time 
and  means  to  the  publication  of  what  he  perceived  to  be 
from  Heaven,  we  must  follow  his  example  and  save  our 

1  Published  in  1849  by  Dr.  J.  F.  I.  Tafel,  in  its  original  incomplete  form, 
under  the  title  of  Regnum  Animate,  pars  viL  De  Anima. 


164  PHILOSOPHICAL  STUDIES. 

readers'  appetite  for  the  later  and  better  works.  We  must 
not  wait  till  they  have  well  drunk,  even  of  the  pure  water  of 
the  earlier  supply,  but  must  hasten  to  pour  out  for  them  this 
same  water  after  it  has  become  wine.  We  will  but  give  a 
sip,  and  then  pass  on. 

"  All  souls  are  purely  spiritual  forms.  Thus  all  minds  and 
their  loves  are  purely  spiritual,  whether  they  are  good  or  evil ; 
for  a  spirit,  whether  good  or  evil,  is  still  purely  spirit,  or  purely 
mind,  and  has  purely  spiritual  —  that  is,  universal  —  loves,  in 
which  are  contained  the  principles  of  lower  and  purely  natural 
loves.  A  good  angel,  as  also  an  evil  angel  or  devil,  is  purely 
spirit;  and  the  loves  of  each  are  purely  spiritual, — but  with 
the  difference,  that,  whatever  a  good  spirit  loves,  the  evil  spirit 
hates  and  loves  its  opposite  "  (p.  202). 

"  The  first  and  supreme  love  of  the  spirit  or  soul,  and  the 
most  universal,  is  the  love  of  Being  above  itself,  from  which 
it  has  drawn  and  continually  draws  its  essence;  in  which, 
through  which,  and  on  account  of  which  it  is  and  lives.  This 
love  is  the  first  of  all,  because  nothing  can  exist  and  subsist 
from  itself  except  God,  who  exists  in  Himself,  and  alone  is 
He  who  is.  Because  the  soul  feels  this  in  itself,  that  supreme 
love  is  also  inborn  in  it,  and  thus  is  the  very  Divine  love 
within  us.  There  is  also  given  a  love  directly  opposite  to 
this,  though  also  spiritual  and  supreme,  which  is  hatred  of  any 
power  or  being  above  itself.  This  love  is  called  diabolical ; 
from  it  is  known  what  the  quality  of  good  love  is,  and  from 
the  good,  what  the  quality  of  evil  love  is  "  (p.  203). 

"The  Divine  Providence  takes  especial  care  that  individ- 
uals shall  be  distinct,  one  from  another,  since  it  is  the  very 
end  of  creation  that  a  most  perfect  society  of  souls  may  exist. 
.  .  .  As,  then,  no  soul  is  absolutely  like  another,  but  some 
difference  or  diversity  of  state  exists  between  all,  this  has  not 
obtained  merely  for  the  sake  of  distinguishing  one  from  an- 
other, but  to  the  end  that  the  most  perfect  form  of  society 
might  exist  from  the  variety.  And  in  such  a  form  there  must 
needs  be  not  only  a  difference  among  all,  but  such  a  differ- 


ON  THE  SOUL.  165 

ence,  or  variety,  as  that  all  the  individuals  may  come  together 
in  harmony,  so  as  to  form  together  a  society  in  which  nothing 
shall  be  wanting  that  is  not  found  in  some  one.  .  .  .  This 
harmonic  variety,  however,  does  not  consist  in  the  outward 
variety  of  souls,  but  in  their  spiritual  variety,  of  love  towards 
God  and  towards  their  neighbor ;  for  the  state  of  the  soul 
concerns  only  its  spiritual  state,  how  it  may  be  nearest  to  its 
God.  When  any  shade  of  variety  is  wanting,  some  place 
in  heaven  may  be  said  to  be  as  yet  vacant ;  so  that  all  the 
differences,  or  varieties,  are  to  be  filled  up  before  the  form 
can  exist  in  full  perfection. 

"  But  whether  there  are  to  be  many  societies,  and,  as  it 
were,  many  heavens,  of  which  the  universal  society  will  con- 
sist, which  is  called  the  kingdom  of  God,  we  seem  also  able  to 
conclude  ;  for  every  variety,  even  spiritual,  involves  an  order, 
with  subordination  and  co-ordination.  .  .  .  For  when  the 
form  of  rule  is  most  perfect,  it  is  of  necessity  that  all  societies 
should  produce  a  general  harmony  together,  as  the  individual 
members  produce  a  particular  harmony  in  each  society. 

"This  is  called  the  kingdom  of  God,  in  heaven,  but  on 
earth,  the  seminary  of  that  kingdom,  the  very  city  of  God, 
which  is  not  joined  to  any  certain  religion  or  church,  but  is 
distributed  through  the  whole  world;  for  God  elects  His 
members  out  of  all,  that  is,  of  those  who  had  actually  loved 
God  above  themselves,  and  their  neighbors  as  themselves. 
For  this  is  the  law  of  all  laws :  in  this  culminate  all  laws, 
Divine  and  natural;  all  the  rest  are  but  means  leading  to 
this"  (p.  243). 

"  Such  a  society  cannot  exist  without  its  Head  or  Prince ; 
that  is  to  say,  without  Him  who  has  been  man,  without  blame 
and  without  offence,  victor  over  all  affections  of  the  mind, 
virtue  itself  and  piety  itself,  and  the  love  of  God  above  one's 
self,  and  the  love  of  the  companion  and  neighbor,  and  thus 
Divinity  in  Himself, —  in  whom  the  whole  society  should  be 
represented,  and  through  whom  the  members  of  the  society 
might  come  to  His  will.  Without  such  a  king  of  souls,  the 


1 66  PHILOSOPHICAL  STUDIES. 

society  might  be  gathered  and  exist  in  vain.  This  also  follows 
necessarily  from  the  conceded  form  of  rule,  from  the  differ- 
ence of  state  of  each  member,  and  from  the  approach  to  God 
through  love.  For  that  form  must  be  determined  by  the 
purer  of  every  degree,  consequently  by  the  purest,  who  has 
been  without  sin,  that  is,  by  our  Saviour  and  Preserver,  Jesus 
Christ,  in  whom  alone  we  can  by  faith  and  love  draw  near 
to  the  Divine  Throne  "  (p.  246). 

To  review  Swedenborg's  labors  as  a  philosopher :  — 

We  find  him  coming  into  the  field  in  the  Augustan  age 
of  philosophy,  when  human  reason  had  gone  as  far  as  of  its 
own  power  it  could  go  in  the  search  for  the  soul  and  the 
Infinite ;  when  its  next  step  was  to  be  either  a  plunge  into 
materialism  and  unbelief,  or  a  confession  of  its  own  impo- 
tence and  a  submission  to  something  above  itself.  We  find 
him  seizing  upon  all  the  vantage  ground  that  had  been 
gained,  from  Plato  and  Aristotle  to  Leibnitz  and  Locke ;  by 
the  deduction  of  idealism  and  the  induction  of  realism  plac- 
ing in  order  the  already  vast  accumulations  of  science  ;  with 
the  aid  of  the  microscope  and  of  the  telescope  reading  the 
Book  of  Nature,  for  the  purpose  of  learning  the  steps  by 
which  the  power  of  the  Highest  descends,  in  order  that  the 
soul  might  remount  by  them  to  His  contemplation ;  not  of 
its  own  strength,  but  submissively  to  His  Word,  trusting  to 
His  leading  hand,  and  hearkening  to  His  guiding  Spirit.1 

Of  the  steps  that  thus  opened  before  him,  let  us  bear  in 
mind  these  :  — 

That  all  of  life  is  in  and  from  the  Divine,  and  that  except 
from  the  Divine  nought  can  for  a  moment  exist. 

1  "  Having  thus  traced  the  philosophy  of  Swedenborg  to  its  highest  point,  we 
may  look  back  for  a  moment  upon  his  whole  method  of  procedure.  Evidently 
it  is  the  inductive  and  synthetic  method  combined.  Commencing  by  observa- 
tion, his  mind  seized  upon  certain  high  philosophical  axioms ;  and  from  them 
reasoned  downwards  to  the  nature  and  uses  of  particular  objects.  Perhaps  it  is 
the  only  attempt  the  world  has  seen  (with  the  exception  of  the  unsuccessful 
efforts  of  Comte)  at  rising  upwards  to  purely  philosophical  ideas  from  positive 
and  concrete  facts." — J.  D.  MORELL:  Historical  and  Critical  View  of  Specu' 
lative  Philosophy  of  Europe  in  igt/t  Century,  i.  320. 


STEPS   ASCENDING  AND   DESCENDING. 

That  the  inflowing  of  life  from  the  Divine  is  primarily  into 
forms  the  most  simple,  most  single,  and  inmost. 

That  the  descent  of  life  is  through  successive  degrees,  one 
without  and  correspondent  to  another,  as  the  body  to  the 
soul. 

That  the  outer  degree  has  its  life  from  the  inner,  and  yet 
enjoys  a  certain  freedom  of  reaction  and  consent  of  its 
own. 

That  the  Divine,  by  means  of  its  life-giving  residence  in  the 
inmost  of  every  minutest  thing,  rules  all  things,  from  greatest 
to  least. 

That,  from  intimate  conjunction  with  the  finite  soul,  the 
Divine  has  given  as  it  were  a  derivation  of  itself,  or  an  in- 
dwelling of  itself,  still  Divine,  as  a  nexus  in  the  finite. 

That  the  infinite  variety  in  the  created  universe  is  for  the 
sake  of  a  most  perfect  whole,  in  which  there  may  be  a  special 
place  and  use  for  every  individual. 

That  this  variety  is  determined  by  an  order  of  series  and 
degrees,  in  which  there  is  perfect  co-ordination  and  subordi- 
nation. 

That  there  is  thus  a  subordination  of  ends,  and  everything 
subserves  the  final  end. 

That  the  final  end  is  a  universal  society  of  human  souls, 
composed  of  smaller  societies  in  co-ordination  and  subordi- 
nation, with  infinite  variety  tending  to  a  most  perfect  whole. 

That  this  universal  society,  or  heaven,  is  of  necessity  ruled 
and  ordered  by  Him  who  is  at  once  God  and  perfect  Man, 
our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ. 

It  is  by  these  steps  that  Swedenborg  —  accepting  with  the 
idealists  the  certainty  of  intuitive,  interior  perceptions  ;  with 
the  materialists  the  reality  of  outward  impressions  —  learned 
to  connect  them  and  to  mount  securely  into  assurance  of 
Divine  things,  even  of  Revelation  and  of  the  Incarnation. 
Little  do  we  realize  who  drink  in  his  theology  as  our  mother's 
milk,  in  what  laborious  intellectual  discipline  its  philosophic 
foundation  was  laid.  Meanwhile  materialists  still  study  only 


1 68  PHILOSOPHICAL  STUDIES. 

outward  phenomena,  ignoring  hidden  causes.  Rationalists 
still  discuss  mental  processes,  as  if  in  them  lay  all  the  world. 
But  in  Germany,  under  Providence,  a  new  school  of  thinkers 
has  sprung  up,  who,  thoroughly  trained  in  philosophic  reason- 
ing, have  yet  the  Christian  theology  for  their  abiding  faith. 
To  this  school  we  are  indebted,  on  the  one  hand,  for  the 
affirmative  tone  which  German  philosophy  is  gradually  as- 
suming, and,  on  the  other,  for  the  amelioration,  or  philosophic 
interpretation,  that  for  half  a  century  has  been  quietly  steal- 
ing over  the  dogmatic  thought  of  Calvinistic,  Lutheran,  and 
even  Roman  Catholic  theologians.  That  Swedenborg's  steps 
in  philosophy  are  not  the  steps  taken  by  this  school,  any 
more  than  his  steps  hi  science  are  the  steps  taken  by  the 
modern  school  of  science,  need  not  surprise  us.1  Neither 
do  they  lead  to  precisely  the  same  end.  But  the  parallelism 
in  the  conclusions  reached  is  so  striking,  that  it  is  becoming 
more  and  more  difficult  every  day  to  point  out  clearly  the 
distinction  between  the  doctrine  of  Swedenborg  and  that  of 
these  modern  theologians,  authors  of  what  they  themselves 
call  regenerated  theology.  Essential  distinctions,  however, 
exist  and,  we  may  safely  say,  will  continue  to  exist,  though 
of  decreasing  importance,  till  all  together  can  recognize  in 
Swedenborg  the  expounder  of  the  Doctrine  that  was  to 
come.  This  Doctrine  Swedenborg,  studying  the  Revelation 
in  Nature,  saw  as  yet  but  through  a  glass  darkly :  his  eyes 
needed  to  be  touched  by  the  Divine  Hand  in  order  that,  in 
the  Revelation  of  the  Holy  Word,  they  might  see  clearly. 

1  Notwithstanding  what  Mr.  Emerson  has  said  in  his  Representative  Men 
(p.  112), —  "  He  must  be  reckoned  a  leader  in  that  evolution  which,  by  giving  to 
science  an  idea,  has  given  to  an  aimless  accumulation  of  experiments  guid- 
'ance  and  form  and  a  beating  heart," — it  would  be  difficult  to  show  that  scien- 
tific men  have  taken  many  steps  under  Swedenborg's  leadership.  But  see 
Appendix  XI. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

SPIRITUAL  PREPARATION. 

HITHERTO  Swedenborg's  labors  have  been  devoted  to  the 
unfolding  of  the  Divine  Revelation  in  the  Book  of  Nature,  by 
means  of  experiment,  analysis,  and  the  exercise  of  reason, 
under  such  guidance  as  he  was  prepared  to  receive  of  the 
Spirit  of  Truth.  In  these  labors  we  have  observed  the  ample 
training  of  the  reasoning  faculty,  coming  to  maturity,  with  its 
increasing  acknowledgment  of  dependence  on  the  light  of 
the  Sun  of  heaven.  We  are  now  to  learn  the  preparation 
of  heart  yet  necessary,  in  order  that  the  submission  to  the 
guidance  of  the  Spirit  of  Truth  may  become  so  entire  as  to  fit 
him  for  unfolding  the  Divine  Revelation  in  the  written  Word. 
The  groundwork  of  this  preparation  we  may  recognize  in 
the  "Rules  of  Life,"  which  Sandel  found,  as  he  says  in  his 
eulogy,  "in  more  than  one  place  among  his  manuscripts," 
and  which  may  be  commended  to  every  one  who  would  fulfil 
the  duties  of  this  life  and  prepare  for  life  in  the  kingdom 
of  heaven :  — 

"i.  Diligently  to  read  and  meditate  upon  the  Word  of 
God. 

"2.  To  be  content  under  the  dispensations  of  God's 
Providence. 

"3.  To  observe  a  propriety  of  behavior,  and  to  preserve 
the  conscience  pure. 

"  4.  To  obey  what  is  commanded,  to  attend  faithfully  to 
one's  office  and  other  duties,  and  in  addition  to  make  one's 
self  useful  to  society  in  general." 

As  marking  the  progress  of  the  preparation,  we  find  in 
his  philosophical  works,  besides  the  growing  humility  and 


I7O  SPIRITUAL  PREPARATION. 

reverence  that  illumine  the  pages,  some  plain  statements, 
drawn  we  cannot  doubt  from  his  spiritual  experience.  In 
the  part  of  The  Animal  Kingdom  treating  of  the  soul,  he 
says,— 

"To  change  the  disposition  is  to  change  the  very  nature. 
To  change  a  good  disposition  into  an  evil  one  is  compar- 
atively easy;  but  to  change  an  evil  one  into  a  good  is 
more  difficult.  This  can  in  no  way  be  effected,  except  by 
means  of  the  rational  mind  and  its  understanding,  whether 
the  understanding  be  our  own,  or  derived  from  faith,  or  per- 
suaded by  authority.  Nor  is  the  nature  changed  unless  we 
become  averse  to  evils  and  abhor  them,  and  never  lead  our 
mind  back  into  the  former  state  ;  and  unless  whenever  it  slips 
back,  we  snatch  it  out,  from  the  liberty  given,  and  come  into 
the  state  which  agrees  with  the  more  perfect  love.  Nor  even 
so  is  it  changed  unless  we  remain  a  long  while  in  this  state, 
and  meet  the  other  with  force  and  violence,  clothing  ourselves 
with  the  opposite  new  state  by  constant  works  and  practices 
of  virtues,  and  so  continuing  until  it  has  become  a  second 
nature  and  expelled,  as  it  were,  the  other  nature, —  so  that, 
whenever  the  old  nature  returns,  we  perceive  that  it  must  be 
resisted.  In  this  way  and  no  other  we  can  put  off  the  evil 
nature  and  put  on  a  good  nature ;  but  it  is  very  difficult  in 
this  life  without  grace  and  Divine  help." 

These  we  feel  to  be  the  words  of  experience,  of  long  and 
successful  labor.  But  what  is  here  described  is  only  the 
reformation  of  the  natural  mind,  or  disposition.  After  this  it 
is  necessary  that  the  natural  mind  should  so  far  submit  as  to 
suffer  the  spiritual  mind  to  flow  in  with  its  own  loves. 

"To  this,"  Swedenborg  says,  "the  intellect,  unless  from 
what  is  revealed,  contributes  nothing;  but  faith  springing 
from  God  does  the  work.  And  so,  His  will  being  invoked, 
His  spirit  flows  into'  the  soul  and  changes  its  state,  or  perfects 
it ;  but  the  work  is  one  of  long  discipline,  if  the  soul  is  evil, 
that  it  may  become  good.  .  .  .  Hence  it  is  plain  how  diffi- 
cult it  is  to  turn  an  evil  soul  into  a  good  one,  and  that  this  is 


REGENERATION.  1 7! 

of  the  Divine  grace  alone,  though  there  must  be  persevering 
application  on  the  part  of  man."  1 

What  is  here  described,  though  in  the  terms  of  his  Psycho- 
logy, we  cannot  fail  to  recognize  as  the  regeneration  of  water 
and  of  the  spirit.  The  description  is  that  of  experience, 
already,  we  may  believe,  far  advanced.  What  was  yet  needed 
for  its  completion  we  are  now  to  see.  But  we  may  well 
pause  to  consider  how  little  we  have  ourselves  accomplished, 
even  of  the  reformation  of  the  natural  disposition,  and  how 
little  we  know  in  our  own  experience  of  the  total  regenera- 
tion sought  by  Swedenborg.  This  'deep  regeneration,  though 
with  his  consent  and  co-operation,  was  being  effected  by  the 
Lord  for  a  purpose  to  him  unknown.  A  few  years  later,  he 
wrote, — 

"What  the  acts  of  my  life  involved  I  could  not  distinguish 
at  the  time  they  happened,  but  by  the  Divine  mercy  of  God 
Messiah  I  was  afterwards  informed  with  regard  to  some,  even 
many  particulars.  From  these  I  was  at  last  able  to  see  that 
the  Divine  Providence  governed  the  acts  of  my  life  unin- 
terruptedly from  my  very  youth,  and  directed  them  in  such  a 
manner  that  by  means  of  the  knowledge  of  natural  things  I 
was  enabled  to  reach  a  state  of  intelligence,  and  thus  by  the 
Divine  mercy  of  God  Messiah,  to  serve  as  an  instrument  for 
opening  those  things  which  are  hidden  interiorly  in  the  Word 
of  God  Messiah."  (Adv.  iii.  8392.) 

Still  later,  Nov.  n,  1766,  he  wrote  to  Oetinger, — 

"  I  was  introduced  by  the  Lord  into  the  natural  sciences, 
and  thus  prepared,  and  indeed  from  the  year  1710  to  1744, 
when  heaven  was  opened  to  me."  And  this  he  said  was  for 
the  purpose, — 

"  That  the  spiritual  things  which  are  being  revealed  at  the 
present  day  may  be  taught  and  understood  naturally  and 
rationally;  for  spiritual  truths  have  a  correspondence  with 
natural  truths,  because  in  these  they  terminate,  and  upon 
these  they  rest.  .  .  .  The  Lord  has  granted  me  besides  to 

1  De  Anima,  pp.  218-220.         2  The  references  are  now  to  Numbers. 


SPIRITUAL  PREPARATION. 

love  truths  in  a  spiritual  manner, — that  is,  to  love  them,  not 
for  the  sake  of  honor,  nor  for  the  sake  of  gain,  but  for  the 
sake  of  the  truths  themselves ;  for  he  who  loves  truths  for 
the  sake  of  truth,  sees  them  from  the  Lord,  because  the 
Lord  is  the  Way  and  the  Truth." 

For  a  better  understanding  of  this  love  of  truth  for  the 
sake  of  truth,  and  of  its  effects,  we  will  here  quote  a  passage 
or  two  from  Swedenborg's  Arcana  Ccelestia,  and  more  by 
and  by :  — 

"Doctrine  is  to  be  drawn  from  the  Word,  and  while  it  is 
being  drawn  man  must  be  in  illustration  from  the  Lord ;  and 
he  is  in  illustration  when  in  the  love  of  truth  for  the  sake  of 
truth,  not  for  the  sake  of  self  and  the  world.  These  are  they 
who  are  illustrated  in  the  Word  when  they  read  it,  and  see 
truth,  and  therefrom  form  for  themselves  doctrine.  The  rea- 
son is,  because  such  men  communicate  with  heaven,  thus  with 
the  Lord,  and  so,  being  illustrated  from  the  Lord,  they  are 
led  to  see  the  truths  of  the  Word  as  they  are  in  heaven ;  for 
the  Lord  flows  in  through  heaven  into  their  understandings, 
the  interior  understanding  being  what  is  illustrated.  The 
Lord  at  the  same  time  flows  in  with  faith,  by  means  of  the  co- 
operation of  the  new  will,  to  which  it  belongs  to  be  affected 
with  truth  for  the  sake  of  truth." 1  (A.  C.  9424.) 

"The  Lord  speaks  with  the  man  of  the  Church  in  no 
other  way  than  by  means  of  the  Word,  for  He  then  illustrates 
man,  so  that  he  may  see  the  truth ;  and  He  also  gives  per- 
ception, so  that  man  may  perceive  that  it  is  so.  But  this 
takes  place  according  to  the  quality  or  the  desire  of  truth 
with  man,  and  the  desire  of  truth  with  man  is  according  to 
the  love  of  it.  They  who  love  truth  for  the  sake  of  truth  are 
in  illustration,  and  they  who  love  truth  for  the  sake  of  good 
are  in  perception."  (A.  C.  10,290.) 

Again  he  says  of  his  own  preparation, — 

1  Swedenborg  uses  the  word  "  illustrate"  \illustrare\  in  the  sense  of  filling 
with  light.  The  translations  sometimes  give  "illumine,"  and  sometimes  "en- 
lighten," for  the  same  word,  with  the  same  meaning. 


DREAMS.  173 

"I  was  once  asked  how  from  a  philosopher  I  became 
a  theologian;  and  I  answered,  'In  the  same  manner  that 
fishers  were  made  disciples  and  apostles  by  the  Lord,  and  I 
also  from  early  youth  had  been  a  spiritual  fisher.'  On  hearing 
this,  the  inquirer  asked  what  a  spiritual  fisher  was.  I  replied 
that  a  fisher,  in  the  spiritual  sense  of  the  Word,  signifies  a 
man  who  investigates  and  teaches  natural  truths,  and  after- 
wards spiritual  truths  in  a  rational  manner.  ...  On  hearing 
this,  my  interrogator  raised  his  voice  and  said,  '  Now  I  can 
understand  why  the  Lord  called  and  chose  fishers  to  be  His 
disciples ;  and  so  I  do  not  wonder  that  He  has  also  called 
and  chosen  you,  since,  as  you  have  said,  you  were  from  early 
youth  a  fisher  in  a  spiritual  sense,  that  is,  an  investigator  of 
natural  truths ;  the  reason  that  you  are  now  become  an  in- 
vestigator of  spiritual  truths  is  because  these  are  founded  on 
the  other.'"  (Int.  S.  &  B.  20.) 

Of  the  manifestation  to  him  of  the  Divine  purpose,  and 
of  further  steps  necessary  in  preparation,  we  now  learn  many 
things  from  his  Spiritual  Diary;  — 

"During  several  years,"  he  notes,  Aug.  27,  1748,  "not 
only  had  I  dreams  by  which  I  was  informed  about  the  things 
on  which  I  was  writing,  but  I  experienced  also  changes  of 
state,  there  being  a  certain  extraordinary  light  in  what  was 
written.  Afterwards  I  had  many  visions  with  closed  eyes, 
and  light  was  given  me  in  a  miraculous  manner.  There  was 
also  an  influx  from  spirits,  as  manifest  to  the  sense  as  if  it  had 
been  into  the  senses  of  the  body ;  there  were  infestations  in 
various  ways  by  evil  spirits,  when  I  was  in  temptations ;  and 
afterwards,  when  writing  anything  to  which  the  spirits  had 
an  aversion,  I  was  almost  possessed  by  them,  so  as  to  feel 
something  like  a  tremor.  Flamy  lights  were  seen  [confirming 
what  was  written]  and  conversations  heard  in  the  early  morn- 
ing, besides  many  other  things."  "For  nearly  three  years," 
he  writes  in  August,  1747,  "I  have  been  allowed  to  perceive 
and  notice  the  operation  of  spirits,  not  by  a  sort  of  internal 
sight,  but  by  a  sensation  which  is  associated  with  a  sort  of 


1 74  SPIRITUAL  PREPARATION. 

obscure  sight,  by  which  I  noticed  their  presence,  which  was 
various,  their  approach  and  departure,  besides  many  other 
things." 

For  some  years  his  dreams  had  been  growing  more  re- 
markable and  more  significant,  so  that  he  had  been  led  to 
keep  a  record  of  them.  The  earlier  records,  beginning  as  early 
as  1736,  were  cut  from  his  "Diary"  for  preservation  in  the 
family,  and  now  are  lost ;  but  there  is  still  preserved  a  minute 
account  of  those  that  he  had  at  Amsterdam  and  London  in 
the  spring  and  summer  of  1744,  the  critical  period  of  his 
spiritual  experience,  together  with  a  brief  memorandum  of  the 
dreams  that  came  to  him  in  the  previous  December,  when  he 
had  gone  from  Amsterdam  to  the  Hague.  These  dreams  were 
personal  and  private,  involving  often  dire  temptations,  and 
signifying  to  him  many  things  about  his  studies  and  his  states, 
by  representations  which  without  such  understanding  would 
be  meaningless  or  repulsive.  They  were  not  recorded  for  any 
one's  use  but  his  own,  and  yet  to  the  student  of  Swedenborg's 
progress  they  occasionally  afford  valuable  aid.  For  instance, 
in  this  December  he  notes, — 

"I  wondered  at  myself  that  I  had  not,  so  far  as  my  own 
consciousness  told  me,  any  concern  remaining  for  my  own 
honor,  and  that  I  was  no  longer  inclined  to  the  other  sex  as 
I  had  been  all  my  life  long." 

By  this  inclination  which  now  ceased,  we  are  of  course 
to  understand,  not  the  spiritual  affection  which  belongs  to 
the  spiritual  man,  but  the  natural  inclination  which  is  of 
self,  akin  to  the  " self-interest  and  self-love  in  my  work" 
that  he  again  wonders  at  being  delivered  from,  and  which 
must  needs  be  left  behind  on  approaching  the  gates  of 
heaven.  The  natural  disposition  is  submitting  to  be  ruled 
by  the  spiritual  mind  from  the  Lord,  as  he  about  this  time 
described ;  yet  he  did  not  yield  up  his  natural  will,  which 
was  necessarily  strong  in  a  man  of  his  power,  without  many 
a  painful  struggle.  He  notes  the  same  month, — 

"  How  I  opposed  myself  to  the  Spirit ;  and  how  I  then  en- 


RESISTING  THE  SPIRIT.  175 

joyed  this,  but  afterwards  found  that  it  was  nonsense,  without 
life  and  coherence ;  and  that  consequently  a  great  deal  of 
what  I  had  written,  in  proportion  as  I  had  rejected  the  power 
of  the  Spirit,  was  of  that  description ;  and,  indeed,  that  thus 
all  the  faults  are  my  own,  but  the  truths  are  not  my  own. 
Sometimes  indeed  I  became  impatient  and  thought  I  would 
rebel,  if  all  did  not  go  on  with  the  ease  I  desired,  after  I  no 
longer  did  anything  for  my  own  sake.  [And  again]  I  found 
my  unworthiness  less,  and  gave  thanks  for  the  grace." 

This  is  interesting  in  connection  with  the  fact  that  in  the 
Economy  of  the  Animal  Kingdom,  published  three  years 
before,  we  find  some  material  statements  which  have  been 
disproved  by  later  researches ;  while  in  The  Animal  King- 
dom, which  he  was  now  preparing  for  the  press,  nothing  of 
importance  is  found  that  does  not  stand  the  test  of  time.  It 
is  noteworthy  also  that  near  this  period  he  appends  to  some 
of  his  manuscripts  the  remark,  "  These  things  are  true,  for  I 
have  the  sign,"  J — by  which  we  understand  him  to  mean  the 
flamy  sign  that  appeared  to  him  as  a  confirmation  of  what 
was  true.  To  others  again  he  appends,  on  stating  what  he 
is  going  to  do,  "  So  I  seem  ordered." 

Still  his  struggles  go  on  :  — 

"  How  I  resisted  the  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  what 
took  place  afterwards.  The  hideous  spectres  which  I  saw, 
without  life, — they  were  terrible  ;  although  bound,  they  kept 
moving  in  their  bands.  They  were  in  company  with  an  ani- 
mal, by  which  I  and  not  the  child  was  attacked.  It  seemed 
to  me  as  if  I  were  lying  on  a  mountain,  below  which  was  an 
abyss ;  knots  were  on  it.  I  was  lying  there  trying  to  hold 
myself  up,  holding  on  to  a  knot,  without  foothold,  and  an 
abyss  underneath.  This  signifies  that  I  desire  to  rescue  my- 
self from  the  abyss,  which  yet  is  not  possible." 

That  is  to  say,  as  we  understand,  the  abyss  of  natural,  sel- 
fish will,  out  of  which  we  are  to  be  rescued  by  the  Divine 
grace,  but  not  possibly  by  our  own  power.  In  March  he 

1  See  Photolith  vi.  at  bottom  of  p.  318,  on  the  "  Corpuscular  Philosophy." 


SPIRITUAL  PREPARATION. 

dreams  again  of  the  abyss,  into  which  there  is  danger  of  fall- 
ing unless  he  receive  help. 

In  April, "  the  day  before  Easter,  I  experienced  nothing  the 
whole  night,  although  I  repeatedly  woke  up ;  I  thought  that 
all  was  past  and  gone,  and  that  I  had  been  either  forsaken  or 
exiled.  About  morning  it  seemed  to  me  as  if  I  were  riding, 
and  as  if  I  had  had  the  direction  pointed  out.  It  was  however 
dark,  and  when  I  looked  I  found  that  I  had  gone  astray  on 
account  of  the  darkness  ;  but  then  it  brightened  up  and  I  saw 
how  I  had  gone  wrong,  and  I  noticed  the  way  and  the  forests 
and  groves  which  I  was  to  go  through,  and  also  heaven  behind 
them,  and  then  I  awoke.  My  thoughts  then  of  their  own  ac- 
cord turned  upon  this,  and  afterwards  on  the  other  life,  and  it 
seemed  to  me  as  if  everything  was  full  of  grace.  I  burst  in- 
to tears  at  having  not  loved,  but  rather  provoked,  Him  who 
had  led  me  and  pointed  out  the  way  to  the  kingdom  of  grace ; 
and  also  at  my  being  unworthy  of  acceptance  by  grace." 

"Easter  was  on  the  5th  of  April,  when  I  went  to  the  Lord's 
table.  Temptation  still  continued,  most  in  the  afternoon,  till 
six  o'clock;  but  it  assumed  no  definite  form.  It  was  an 
anxiety  felt  at  being  condemned  and  in  hell ;  but  in  this  feel- 
ing the  hope  given  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  according  to  Paul's 
epistle  to  the  Romans,  v.  5,  remained  strong.  ...  I  was 
assured  that  my  sins  were  forgiven,  and  yet  I  could  not  con- 
trol my  wandering  thoughts  so  as  to  restrain  some  expressions 
opposed  to  my  better  judgment :  I  was  by  permission  under 
the  influence  of  the  Evil  One.  The  temptation  was  assuaged 
by  prayer  and  the  Word  of  God  :  faith  was  there  in  its  en- 
tirety, but  .confidence  and  love  seemed  to  be  gone." 

After  describing  a  terrible  conflict  that  followed  with  a 
snake,  changing  to  a  dog,  in  a  dream,  he  adds, — 

"  From  this  may  be  seen  the  nature  of  the  temptation,  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  greatness  of  God's  grace  by  the  merit 
of  Christ  and  the  operation  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  to  whom  be 
glory  forever  and  ever.  The  idea  at  once  struck  me  how 
great  the  grace  of  the  Lord  is,  who  accounts  and  appropriates 


TEMPTATIONS. 


177 


to  us  our  resistance  in  temptation,  although  it  is  purely  God's 
grace,  and  is  His  and  not  our  work  j  and  He  overlooks  our 
weaknesses  in  it,  which  yet  must  be  manifold.  I  thought  also 
of  the  great  glory  our  Lord  dispenses  after  a  brief  period  of 
tribulation.  .  .  .  Afterwards  I  awoke  and  slept  again  many 
times,  and  all  was  in  answer  to  my  thoughts ;  yet  so  that  in 
everything  there  was  such  life  and  glory  that  I  can  give  no 
description  of  it ;  for  it  was  all  heavenly,  clear  to  me  at  the 
time,  but  afterwards  inexpressible.  In  short  I  was  in  heaven, 
and  I  heard  a  language  which  no  human  tongue  can  utter 
with  its  inherent  life,  nor  the  glory  and  inmost  delight  result- 
ing from  it.  Besides,  while  I  was  awake  I  was  in  a  heavenly 
ecstasy  which  is  also  indescribable.  .  .  .  Praise  and  honor 
and  glory  be  to  the  Highest  !  hallowed  be  His  Name  !  Holy, 
Holy,  Lord  God  of  Hosts  ! " 

By  this  means,  he  says,  "  I  learned  by  experience  the  mean- 
ing of  this, — not  to  love  the  angels  more  than  God  ;  as  they 
had  nearly  overthrown  the  whole  work.  In  comparison  with 
our  Lord  no  attention  must  be  paid  to  them,  that  is,  to  them 
in  respect  to  the  help  they  can  render, —  since  their  love  is 
far  lower  than  His.  By  some  rays  of  light  in  me  I  found  that 
it  would  be  the  greatest  happiness  to  become  a  martyr ;  for, 
on  beholding  inexpressible  grace  combined  with  love  to  God, 
a  desire  was  kindled  in  me  to  undergo  this  torture,  which  is 
nothing  compared  with  eternal  torment ;  and  [a  sense]  that 
the  least  of  the  things  that  one  can  offer  is  his  life.  .  .  .  This 
took  place  in  the  night  between  Easter  Sunday  and  Easter 
Monday." 

Here  we  see  the  inward  depth  of  the  temptation  and  re- 
generation which  Swedenborg  was  now  undergoing.  All  his 
previous  efforts  were  external  in  comparison,  and  futile.  In- 
deed he  is  learning  the  inefficacy  and  error  of  all  merely 
human  efforts  for  goodness,  even  those  of  the  angels  them- 
selves. And  all  this  was  to  the  end  that  he  might  yield  him- 
self wholly  into  the  Lord's  hands,  and  become  His  humble, 
faithful  servant,  with  a  new  heart  and  a  new  spirit.  Nor  was 

12 


178  SPIRITUAL  PREPARATION. 

his  personal  regeneration  all  that  was  at  stake.  The  great 
question  as  to  how  regeneration  is  accomplished  was  to  be 
experimentally  solved  and  intelligently  comprehended.  From 
the  time  of  the  Christian  Fathers  it  had  become  more  and 
more  misunderstood.  The  Roman  Catholic  Church  taught 
that  it  was  effected  by  baptism,  and  confirmed  by  good  works. 
The  Reformed  Churches  had  adopted  the  same  belief  in  bap- 
tism, as  regeneration,  for  those  who  should  receive  faith,  as  the 
elect, —  denying  that  men  can  do  anything  about  it.  For  the 
implanting  of  a  new,  true,  interior  Church,  it  was  essential 
that  the  real  means  of  regeneration  should  be  understood. 
Swedenborg,  by  inheritance,  was  a  mild  Lutheran.  By  expe- 
rience he  now  learns  that  neither  has  baptism  regenerated, 
nor  his  own  labor  in  reformation  ;  that  he  is  in  danger  of  the 
abyss  from  deep  natural  tendency  to  sin ;  that  the  Lord's 
merit  cannot  be  imputed  to  him,  and  so  effect  his  salvation ; 
but  that  to  be  saved,  he  must  see  and  confess  his  sinfulness, 
be  distressed  on  account  of  it,  pray  to  the  Lord  for  the  grace 
of  forgiveness,  making  every  possible  effort  of  resistance  to 
evil,  and  all  with  the  acknowledgment  that  both  the  prayer 
and  the  effort  are  not  his  own,  but  given  from  the  Lord  alone. 
The  process,  indeed,  is  not  essentially  different  from  that  we 
have  seen  already  sketched  in  The  Animal  Kingdom ;  but  it  is 
now  being  accomplished  in  interior  degrees,  far  beyond  what 
Swedenborg  had  imagined.  And  here  it  should  be  remarked 
that  the  term  "regeneration"  is  applicable  to  several  distinct 
degrees  of  the  mind,  of  which  the  more  interior  are  opened  and 
regenerated  with  comparatively  few.  Of  this  we  shall  learn 
more  in  the  arcana  coelestia  of  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis. 
And  as  each  successive  degree  is  nearer  to  the  Lord,  His 
presence  and  agency  in  its  regeneration  become  more  clearly 
seen ;  or,  in  other  words,  each  successive  approach  to  the 
Lord  brings  a  new  consciousness  of  interior  tendency  to  sin, 
which  must  needs  be  deplored  and  submitted  to  Him,  and  a 
deeper  consciousness  that  all  the  power  of  deliverance  is  from 
Him  alone. 


TEMPTATIONS.  179 

To  continue  our  extracts  from  the  note-book  of  dreams : 

"April  6  and  7.  In  the  evening  I  came  into  another 
kind  of  temptation.  .  .  .  While  I  was  reading  God's  miracles 
wrought  through  Moses,  it  seemed  to  me  as  if  something  of 
my  own  understanding  was  mixed  up  with  it,  so  that  I  was 
not  able  to  have  so  strong  a  faith  as  I  ought.  I  believed,  and 
yet  did  not  believe.  I  thought  that  for  this  reason  angels 
and  God  appeared  to  shepherds,  and  not  to  a  philosopher, 
who  allows  his  understanding  to  come  into  play,  which  would 
keep  leading  him  to  ask  why  God  used  the  wind  when  He 
called  the  locusts  together;  why  He  hardened  Pharaoh's 
heart,  and  did  not  work  directly,  —  with  other  like  things 
which  I  thought  of,  and  the  effect  of  which  was  such  that  my 
faith  was  not  firm.  I  looked  upon  the  fire,  and  said  to  my- 
self, *  In  this  case  neither  ought  I  to  believe  that  the  fire  is, 
since  the  external  senses  are  more  fallacious  than  what  God 
says,  which  is  the  Truth  itself;  I  ought  rather  to  believe  this 
than  myself.'  With  these  and  other  similar  thoughts  I  passed 
an  hour,  or  an  hour  and  a  half,  and  in  my  mind  was  engaged 
with  the  Tempter." 

The  temptation  was  clearly  an  effort  of  the  evil  spirits  to 
prevent  his  giving  up  his  heart  to  the  Divine  Will,  under  the 
specious  plea  that  in  so  doing  he  would  have  to  resign  his 
powers  of  understanding,  in  which  his  natural  confidence  and 
pleasure  were  great.  The  occasion  of  this  effort  of  the  spirits 
who  had  hitherto  flattered  his  self-confidence,  appears  plainly 
from  what  follows  :  — 

"  I  must  observe  that  on  the  same  day  I  had  gone  to  Delft, 
and  had  had  the  grace  of  being  engaged  in  profound  spiritual 
thought, — my  thoughts  being  more  profound  and  beautiful 
than  they  had  ever  been  before,  and  indeed  during  the 
whole  day.  This  was  the  work  of  the  Spirit,  who  had  been 
with  me. 

"At  ten  o'clock  I  went  to  bed,  and  in  little  more  than  half 
an  hour  afterwards  I  heard  a  noise  under  my  head.  I  then 
thought  that  the  Tempter  was  gone.  Immediately  afterwards 


I8O  SPIRITUAL  PREPARATION. 

a  tremor  came  over  me,  powerfully  affecting  me  from  the 
head  over  the  whole  body,  accompanied  by  some  sound. 
This  was  repeated  several  times.  I  felt  that  something  holy 
had  come  over  me.  I  then  fell  asleep,  and  about  midnight 
or  a  little  later  in  the  night  a  most  powerful  tremor  seized 
me  from  head  to  foot,  with  a  sound  like  the  concourse  of 
many  winds.  By  this  sound,  which  was  indescribable,  I  was 
shaken  and  thrown  on  my  face ;  while,  at  the  moment  I 
was  thus  thrown  down,  I  became  wide  awake,  and  I  then 
saw  that  I  had  been  prostrated.  I  wondered  what  all  this 
meant,  and  then  spoke,  as  if  I  were  awake.  I  noticed,  how- 
ever, that  these  words  were  put  into  my  mouth :  '  O  Thou 
Almighty  Jesus  Christ,  who  of  Thy  great  mercy  deignest  to 
come  to  so  great  a  sinner,  make  me  worthy  of  this  grace  ! ' 
I  lifted  up  my  hands  and  prayed,  when  a  hand  came  and 
strongly  pressed  my  hands.  I  then  continued  my  prayer  and 
said,  '  O  Thou  who  hast  promised  to  receive  in  mercy  all  sin- 
ners, Thou  canst  not  otherwise  than  keep  this  Thy  word  ! '  I 
lay  on  His  bosom  and  looked  at  Him  face  to  face.  It  was  a 
countenance  with  a  holy  expression,  and  so  that  it  cannot  be 
described.  It  was  also  smiling,  and  I  really  believe  that  His 
countenance  was  such  during  His  life  on  earth." 

With  this  remarkable  narration  we  should  bear  in  mind 
Swedenborg's  later  account  of  the  manner  in  which  the  Lord 
at  times  appears  in  personal  presence  to  spirits  and  angels, 
and  at  rare  intervals  to  men,  —  that  it  is  not  in  His  own 
proper  person,  which  is  too  holy  and  infinite  for  near  ap- 
proach, but  in  the  person  of  an  angel,  so  filled  for  the  time 
being  with  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  that  the  angel's  own  spirit 
is  superseded,  and  his  face  shines  with  the  Divine  radiance. 
Compare  the  angel's  appearance  to  John  in  vision,  now  as 
the  Lord  Himself  and  again  as  an  angel,  his  fellow-servant. 
This  is  evidently  the  nature  of  Swedenborg's  present  vision, 
or  rather  dream,  for  it  occurred  during  sleep,  and  involved 
some  of  the  incongruities  of  expression  that  are  so  familiar 
in  dreams.  Yet,  as  showing  the  process  of  Swedenborg's 


DIVINE  GRACE.  l8l 

spiritual  preparation,  it  is  most  valuable  to  us,  as  it  was 
most  memorable  to  him.  The  record  continues  :  — 

"  He  addressed  me,  and  asked  if  I  had  a  sound-health  pass 
[the  assurance  of  a  clean  heart].  I  answered,  'O  Lord, 
Thou  knowest  better  than  I ; '  when  He  said,  '  Do  it  then  ! ' 
This,  as  I  perceived  in  my  mind,  signified,  '  Love  Me  really,' 
or,  (  Do  what  thou  hast  promised.'  O  God,  impart  to  me 
grace  for  this  !  I  perceived  that  I  could  not  do  it  by  my 
own  strength.  I  now  awoke  in  a  tremor.  I  again  came  into 
such  a  state  that,  whether  asleep  or  awake,  I  was  in  a  train  of 
thought.  I  thought,  'What  can  this  mean?  Has  it  been 
Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  whom  I  have  seen  ?  But  it  is  sinful 
in  me  to  doubt  this.'  As  we  are,  however,  commanded  to  try 
the  spirits,  I  reflected  on  everything;  and  from  what  had 
happened  the  previous  night  I  perceived  that  during  the 
whole  of  that  night  I  had  been  purified  and  encompassed 
and  preserved  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  thus  had  been  pre- 
pared for  this  purpose ;  and  then  that  I  had  fallen  on  my 
face  :  and  I  thought  of  the  words  I  had  uttered,  and  con- 
sidered that  the  prayer  did  not  come  from  me,  but  that 
the  words  were  put  into  my  mouth,  yet  so  that  it  was  I  who 
spoke ;  and  further  that  all  was  holy.  From  all  this  I  per- 
ceived that  it  was  the  Son  of  God  Himself  who  had  descend- 
ed with  such  a  sound,  by  which  I  had  been  prostrated  on  the 
floor ;  who  made  the  prayer,  and  thereby  declared  that  He 
was  Jesus.  I  prayed  for  grace,  because  I  had  so  long  enter- 
tained doubts  on  the  subject,  and  because  it  had  entered  into 
my  thoughts  to  demand  a  miracle,  which  I  now  found  was 
unbecoming.  Thereupon  I  began  to  pray,  and  prayed  only 
for  grace, —  more  I  could  not  utter ;  but  afterwards  I  added 
to  this  prayer,  and  prayed  that  I  might  receive  love,  which  is 
Jesus  Christ's  work  and  not  my  own.  In  the  mean  time 
tremors  often  passed  over  me. 

"About  day-break  I  fell  asleep  again,  and  then  I  had  con- 
tinually in  my  thought  how  Christ  conjoins  Himself  to  man- 
kind. Holy  thoughts  came,  but  they  were  of  such  a  nature 


1 82  SPIRITUAL  PREPARATION. 

as  to  be  unfathomable,  for  I  cannot  express  with  my  pen  the 
least  part  of  those  things  which  happened.  I  only  know  that 
I  have  had  such  thoughts.  .  .  . 

"  I  must  not  forget  that  it  also  entered  into  my  thoughts 
that  the  Holy  Spirit  desired  to  lead  me  to  Jesus,  and  present 
me  to  Him  as  a  work  that  had  been  prepared  by  Him  [the 
Holy  Spirit]  ;  and  that  I  must  not  claim  anything  to  my- 
self, but  that  all  is  His,  although  of  grace  He  appropriates 
it  to  us.  ... 

"This  much  have  I  learned  thus  far  in  spiritual  things,  that 
there  is  nothing  for  it  but  to  humble  one's  self,  and  with  all 
humility  to  desire  nothing  but  the  grace  of  Christ.  I  strove 
from  my  own  self  to  obtain  love  ;  but  this  is  presumptuous,  for 
when  any  one  has  God's  grace,  he  leaves  himself  to  Christ's 
pleasure,  and  acts  according  to  His  pleasure.  A  person  is 
happiest  when  he  is  in  God's  grace.  With  the  humblest 
prayer  I  had  to  ask  forgiveness  before  my  conscience  could 
be  appeased ;  for,  before  doing  so,  I  was  still  in  temptation. 
The  Holy  Spirit  taught  me  all  this,  but  I  in  my  weak  under- 
standing passed  over  humility,  which  yet  is  the  foundation 
of  all." 

Here  we  observe  the  manner  of  thought  in  which  Sweden- 
borg  had  been  educated, —  of  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the 
Holy  Spirit,  as  distinct  in  person,  and  of  one  as  mediating 
with  another.  He  had  not  yet  learned  what  he  afterwards 
taught  so  long  and  earnestly,  that  the  Father  is  in  the  Son, 
and  that  the  Holy  Spirit  is  His  Divine  operation  in  men.  But 
he  was  beginning  to  learn  by  actual  experience  what  he  was 
soon  to  teach  the  world,  and  what  had  hitherto  been  a  mys- 
tery fruitful  of  unbelief, —  how  a  man  can  be  led  in  freedom 
and  reason  to  accept  the  will  of  the  Spirit  in  place  of  his 
natural  will,  and  thus  of  the  Spirit  to  be  born  again. 

"April  7  and  8.  ...  I  was  also  in  a  temptation  where 
thoughts  invaded  me  which  I  could  not  control ;  nay,  they 
poured  in  so  powerfully  that  all  my  other  thoughts  were  kept 
under,  and  full  liberty  was  given  them  to  resist  the  power  of 


DIVINE   GRACE.  183 

the  Spirit,  which  leads  in  a  different  direction.  The  infesta- 
tion was  indeed  so  strong  that,  unless  God's  grace  had  been 
stronger,  I  must  either  have  succumbed  or  become  mad. 
During  that  time  I  could  not  direct  my  thoughts  to  the  con- 
templation of  Christ  whom  I  had  seen  for  that  brief  moment. 
The  action  of  the  Spirit  and  its  power  affected  me  so  that  I 
almost  lost  my  senses.  ...  I  can  compare  this  only  to  a 
pair  of  scales,  in  one  of  which  is  our  own  will  and  sinful  na- 
ture, and  in  the  other  the  power  of  God.  These  our  Lord 
disposes  in  temptation  so  that  they  are  in  a  state  of  equilib- 
rium ;  as  soon,  then,  as  it  is  borne  down  on  this  side,  He 
helps  it  up  again.  Such  have  I  found  to  be  the  case,  speak- 
ing in  a  natural  manner ;  from  which  it  follows  that  this  is  far 
from  being  our  own  power,  for  that  draws  the  scale  down, 
and  is  rather  opposed  to  than  co-operating  with  the  Spirit's 
power ;  and  consequently  it  is  entirely  our  Lord's  work,  which 
is  thus  disposed  by  Him.  .  .  .  This  have  I  learned,  that  the 
only  thing  in  this  state  —  and  I  do  not  know  any  other — is, 
in  all  humility,  to  thank  God  for  His  grace  and  to  pray  for  it, 
and  to  recognize  our  own  unworthiness  and  God's  infinite 
grace.  .  .  .  Afterwards,  when  various  things  occurred  to  me 
of  which  I  had  thought  long  ago  and  which  had  become 
fixed  in  my  mind,  it  was  just  as  if  I  had  been  told  that  I 
had  found  reasons  for  excusing  myself  (this  also  was  a  great 
temptation  for  me),  or  again  reasons  for  attributing  to  myself 
the  good  that  I  had  done,  or  rather  that  was  done  through 
me ;  but  God's  Spirit  prevented  even  this,  and  caused  me  to 
find  it  otherwise.  This  last  temptation  was  severer  than  the 
first,  as  it  went  to  the  innermost ;  and  to  resist  it  I  received 
a  stronger  evidence  of  the  Spirit,  for  at  times  I  broke  into  a 
perspiration.  What  then  arose  in  my  mind  had  no  longer  the 
effect  of  condemning  me,  for  I  had  a  strong  assurance  that  I 
had  been  forgiven  ;  but  the  desire  came  to  excuse  myself  and 
make  myself  free.  Very  often  I  burst  into  tears,  not  of  sor- 
row, but  of  inmost  joy  at  our  Lord's  deigning  to  be  so  gra- 
cious to  so  unworthy  a  sinner ;  for  the  sum  of  all  I  found  to 


184  SPIRITUAL  PREPARATION. 

be  this,  that  the  one  thing  needful  is  to  cast  one's  self  in  all 
humility  on  our  Lord's  grace,  to  recognize  one's  own  unwor- 
thiness, and  to  thank  God  in  humility  for  His  grace  ;  for  if 
there  is  a  feeling  of  glorification  contained  in  it,  the  tendency 
of  which  is  towards  our  own  honor, — whether  it  is  a  glori- 
fication of  God's  grace  or  of  anything  else, —  such  a  feeling  is 
impure.  ...  I  found  that  I  was  more  unworthy  than  others 
and  the  greatest  sinner  for  this  reason,  that  our  Lord  has 
granted  me  to  penetrate  by  thought  into  certain  things  more 
deeply  than  many  others  do  ;  and  the  very  source  of  sin  lies 
in  the  thoughts  I  am  carrying  out,  so  that  my  sins  have  on 
that  account  a  deeper  foundation  than  those  of  many  others  : 
and  in  this  I  found  my  unworthiness  and  my  sins  greater  than 
those  of  other  men.  For  it  is  not  sufficient  to  declare  one's 
own  unworthiness,  since  the  heart  may  be  far  removed  from 
such  a  declaration,  and  it  may  be  a  mere  matter  of  the  imag- 
ination ;  but  actually  to  see  that  such  is  the  case  is  due  to 
the  grace  of  the  Spirit. 

"  Now,  while  I  was  in  the  spirit,  I  thought  and  strove  by 
thought  to  attain  a  knowledge  of  how  to  avoid  all  that  was 
impure.  I  noticed,  however,  that  this  intruded  itself  from  the 
ground  of  the  love  of  self  on  all  occasions  when  anything  was 
reflected  upon ;  as,  for  instance,  when  any  one  did  not  regard 
me  according  to  my  own  estimation  of  myself,  I  thought, 
'  Oh,  if  you  only  knew  what  grace  I  have,  you  would  act  differ- 
ently.' This,  then,  was  not  only  impure,  but  originated  in  the 
love  of  self.  At  last  I  found  this  out,  and  entreated  God's 
forgiveness ;  and  I  then  wished  that  others  also  might  have 
the  same  grace,  as  they  perhaps  either  have  had  or  will  have. 
From  this  I  observed  clearly  that  there  was  still  in  me  that 
same  pernicious  apple  which  has  not  yet  been  converted, 
and  which  is  Adam's  root  and  his  hereditary  sin.  Yes,  and 
an  infinite  number  of  other  roots  of  sin  remain  in  me." 

No  one  who  has  himself  begun  to  receive  the  grace  that 
lays  bare  the  sinfulness  of  the  heart,  can  read  these  sentences 
without  feeling  that  the  writer  was  indeed  approaching  the 


TEMPTATIONS.  185 

judgment-seat,  and  without  earnestly  desiring  with  him  that 
his  longed-for  purification  may  have  been  accomplished. 
That  the  self-condemnation  was  real,  and  no  mere  show  of 
words,  is  plain  from  its  particular  application,  as  in  the  fol- 
lowing instance  :  — 

"  I  saw  a  bookshop,  and  immediately  the  thought  struck 
me  that  my  work  would  have  more  effect  than  that  of  others  ; 
yet  I  checked  myself  at  once.  For  one  serves  another,  and 
our  Lord  has  more  than  a  thousand  ways  by  which  to  pre- 
pare a  man ;  so  that  each  and  every  book  must  be  left  to  its 
own  merits,  as  a  means  near  or  remote,  according  to  the 
rational  condition  of  every  man.  Still  arrogance  crops  up  : 
may  God  control  it,  for  the  power  is  in  His  hands  !" 

And  again,  six  months  later,  in  London,  he  notes, —  "I 
dreamed  how  a  big  dog,  which  I  thought  was  fastened,  flew 
at  me  and  bit  me  in  the  leg.  Some  one  came  and  held  its 
terrible  jaws,  so  that  it  could  do  no  more  mischief.  The  day 
before  I  had  been  at  the  Medical  College  hearing  a  lecture, 
when  I  was  rash  enough  to  think  that  I  should  be  mentioned 
as  one  of  those  who  understood  anatomy  best ;  I  was  glad, 
however,  that  this  was  not  done." 

He  had  trusted  that  this  love  for  his  own  works  was  sub- 
dued and  securely  fastened.  He  had  to  learn  again  and 
again,  like  every  other  regenerating  man,  that  he  was  depen- 
dent on  the  continual  protection  of  the  Lord. 

"April  10  and  n.  .  .  .  When  awake,  I  began  thinking 
whether  all  this  was  not  mere  fantasy ;  and  I  then  noticed 
that  my  faith  was  vacillating.  I  therefore  pressed  my  hands 
together  and  prayed  that  I  might  be  strengthened  in  faith, 
which  also  took  place  immediately.  Again,  when  thoughts 
occurred  to  me  about  being  worthier  than  others,  I  prayed  in 
like  manner,  whereupon  these  thoughts  at  once  vanished ;  if, 
therefore,  our  Lord  in  the  least  withdraw  His  hand  from  any 
one,  he  is  out  of  the  true  path,  and  also  out  of  faith,  as  has 
been  manifestly  the  case  with  me. 

"I  slept  this  night  about  eleven  hours,  and  during  the 


1 86  SPIRITUAL  PREPARATION. 

whole  of  the  morning  was  in  my  usual  state  of  internal  glad- 
ness, which  was,  nevertheless,  attended  with  a  pang  :  this,  I 
thought,  arose  from  the  power  of  the  spirit  and  my  own 
unworthiness.  At  last,  with  God's  help,  I  came  into  these 
thoughts, —  that  we  ought  to  be  contented  with  everything 
which  pleases  the  Lord,  because  it  is  for  the  Lord  to  say ; 
and,  further,  that  the  Spirit  is  not  to  be  resisted,  when  we  re- 
ceive from  God  the  assurance  that  it  is  God's  grace  which 
does  all  things  for  our  welfare ;  for  if  we  are  God's,  we  must 
be  delighted  with  whatever  He  pleases  to  do  with  His  own  : 
still  we  must  ask  the  Lord  for  this,  because  not  even  the  least 
thing  is  in  our  own  power.  For  this  the  Lord  gave  me  His 
grace.  I  reflected  upon  this,  desiring  to  understand  the  rea- 
son why  all  this  happens  to  me.  Yet  this  was  sinful ;  for  my 
thoughts  ought  not  to  have  gone  in  that  direction,  but  I 
ought  to  have  prayed  to  the  Lord  for  power  to  control  them. 
It  ought  to  be  enough  for  us  that  it  so  pleases  the  Lord.  In 
everything  we  ought  only  to  call  upon  Him,  pray  to  and  thank 
Him,  and  with  humility  recognize  our  own  unworthiness. 

"  I  am  still  weary  in  my  body  and  mind  ;  for  I  know  noth- 
ing except  my  own  unworthiness,  and  am  in  pain  on  account 
of  being  a  wretched  creature.  I  see  by  this  knowledge  that 
I  am  unworthy  of  the  grace  I  have  received.  ...  I  have 
therefore  adopted  the  following  motto  :  — 

"  God's  will  be  done ;  I  am  Thine  and  not  mine. 

"God  give  grace  for  this ;  for  it  is  not  mine. 

"April  ii  and  12.  ...  There  is  not  a  single  thought 
which  is  not  very  much  alloyed  with  uncleanness  and  im- 
purity. It  is  therefore  best  that  man  should  every  hour  and 
every  moment  acknowledge  that  he  is  deserving  of  the  pun- 
ishment of  hell ;  but  that  God's  grace  and  mercy  which  are 
in  Jesus  Christ  overlook  it.  I  have,  indeed,  observed  that 
our  whole  will  into  which  we  are  born,  and  which  is  ruled  by 
the  body  and  introduces  thought,  is  opposed  to  the  Spirit 
which  does  this  ;  wherefore  there  is  a  continual  strife,  and  we 
can  by  no  manner  of  means  unite  ourselves  with  the  Spirit, 


CONFLICT.  IS/ 

which  by  grace  is  with  us ;  and  hence  it  is  that  we  are  dead 
to  everything  good,  but  to  everything  evil  we  are  inclined 
from  ourselves.  For  this  reason  we  must  at  all  times  ac- 
knowledge ourselves  guilty  of  innumerable  sins,  because  our 
Lord  God  knows  all,  and  we  only  very  little  about  them ;  we 
know  only  so  much  as  enters  into  our  thoughts,  and  only  when 
it  also  enters  into  the  actions,  do  we  become  convinced  of  it. 

" 'April  12  and  13.  ...  God's  grace  thus  showed  me  that 
I  had  to  strive  after  salvation  amid  fear  and  trembling.  But 
I  have  for  my  motto  :  '  God's  will  be  done  ;  I  am  Thine  and 
not  mine ;'  as  therefore  I  have  given  myself  from  myself  to 
the  Lord,  He  may  dispose  of  me  after  His  own  pleasure.  In 
the  body  there  seemed  to  be  something  of  discontent,  but  in 
the  spirit  joy;  for  the  grace  of  our  Lord  does  this.  May 
God  strengthen  me  therein  ! 

"I  was  continually  in  a  state  of  combat  between  thoughts 
which  were  antagonistic  to  one  another.  I  pray  Thee,  O 
Almighty  God,  that  thou  wouldst  grant  me  the  grace  of  being 
Thine  and  not  mine.  Pardon  my  saying  that  I  am  Thine 
and  not  mine ;  it  is  God's  privilege  and  not  mine  to  say 
so.  I  pray  for  the  grace  of  being  Thine,  and  of  not  being 
left  to  myself. 

" 'April  13  and  14.  ...  During  the  whole  day  I  was  in  con- 
flicting thought,  which  tried  to  destroy  that  which  was  of  the 
Spirit  by  abusive  language.  I  found  therefore  that  the  temp- 
tation was  very  strong.  By  the  grace  of  the  Spirit  I  was  led 
to  fix  my  thoughts  on  a  piece  of  wood  or  a  tree,  then  on  the 
cross  of  Christ,  and  on  the  crucified  Christ ;  and  whenever  I 
did  so,  the  other  thoughts  fell  down  flat  as  of  their  own  ac- 
cord. .  .  .  God  be  praised  who  gave  me  this  weapon  !  May 
God  graciously  keep  me  in  this,  that  I  may  have  my  crucified 
Saviour  constantly  before  my  eyes.  For  I  dared  not  look  on 
my  Jesus,  whom  I  have  seen,  because  I  am  an  unworthy  sin- 
ner ;  but  I  ought  rather  to  fall  on  my  face,  and  it  is  Jesus  who 
then  takes  me  up  to  Himself  that  I  may  see  Him.  For  this 
reason  I  look  upon  the  crucified  Christ." 


1 88  SPIRITUAL  PREPARATION. 

Yet  even  here  his  next  night's  dreams  showed  him  that 
he  had,  perhaps,  gone  too  far,  in  claiming  the  crucified  Christ 
as  his  own.  But  whenever  he  moved  to  a  distance,  falling 
on  his  knees  and  praying  before  Him,  it  seemed  that  the  sins 
of  his  weakness  were  forgiven. 

In  these  dreams  and  reflections  many  things  occurred  that 
had  immediate  reference  to  Swedenborg's  studies  and  writ- 
ings in  the  day-time.  But  we  must  restrict  our  quotations  to 
such  as  throw  light  on  his  spiritual  progress,  and  to  only  the 
most  instructive  of  these. 

"April  15  and  16.  .  .  .  The  most  singular  thing  is  that  I 
now  represent  the  inner  man,  and,  as  it  were,  another  than 
myself;  that  I  visit  my  own  thoughts,  frighten  them,  that  is, 
the  things  of  my  memory ;  that  I  accuse  another.  This  shows 
that  matters  are  changed  now,  and  that  I  represent  the  inner 
man,  who  is  opposed  to  another  [the  outer  man].  For  I 
prayed  to  God  that  I  might  not  be  my  own,  but  that  God 
might  please  to  let  me  be  His." 

"April  1 8  and  19.  ...  I  was  at  Divine  service,  where  I 
noticed  that  thoughts  on  matters  of  faith,  respecting  Christ, 
His  merit,  and  the  like,  even  though  they  be  entirely  favora- 
ble and  confirmatory,  still  cause  a  certain  disquietude,  and 
give  rise  to  opposing  thoughts  which  cannot  be  resisted, 
whenever  man  tries  to  believe  from  his  own  understanding, 
and  not  from  the  Lord's  grace.  At  last  it  was  granted  me 
by  the  grace  of  the  Spirit  to  receive  faith  without  reasoning 
upon  it,  and  thus  to  be  assured  in  respect  to  it.  I  then 
saw,  as  it  were  below  me,  my  own  thoughts,  by  which  faith 
was  confirmed;  I  laughed  in  my  mind  at  them,  but  still 
more  at  those  by  which  they  were  impugned  and  opposed. 
Faith  appeared  to  be  far  above  the  thoughts  of  my  under- 
standing. Then  only  I  got  peace  :  may  God  strengthen  me 
in  it !  For  it  is  His  work ;  and  mine  so  much  the  less,  as 
my  thoughts,  and  indeed  the  best  of  them,  hinder  more  than 
they  are  able  to  promote.  ...  It  is  therefore  a  higher  state 
—  I  am  uncertain  whether  it  is  not  the  highest  —  when  man 


TRUE  FAITH.  189 

by  grace  no  longer  mixes  up  his  understanding  in  matters  of 
faith ;  although  it  appears  as  if  the  Lord  with  some  persons 
permits  the  understanding  to  precede  such  states  of  assur- 
ance in  respect  to  things  which  concern  the  understanding. 
1  Blessed  are  they  who  believe  and  do  not  see.'  This  I  have 
clearly  written  in  the  Prologue  [to  The  Animal  Kingdom^, 
numbers  21,  22  ;  yet  of  my  own  self  I  could  never  have  dis- 
covered this  or  arrived  at  the  knowledge  of  it,  but  God's 
grace  has  wrought  this,  I  being  unconscious  of  it :  after- 
wards, however,  I  perceived  it  from  the  very  effect  and  the 
change  in  my  whole  interior  being.  This,  therefore,  is  God's 
grace  and  His  work,  and  to  Him  alone  belongs  eternal  glory. 
From  this  I  see  how  difficult  it  is  for  the  learned,  more 
indeed  than  for  the  unlearned,  to  arrive  at  such  a  faith,  and 
consequently  to  conquer  themselves  so  as  to  be  able  to  smile 
at  themselves ;  for  man's  worship  of  his  own  understanding 
must  first  of  all  be  abolished  and  overthrown,  and  this  is 
God's  work  and  not  man's.  It  is  also  God's  work  for  man  to 
continue  him  in  that  state.  Faith  is  in  this  way  separated  from 
our  understanding  and  resides  above  it.  This  is  pure  faith ; 
the  other,  so  long  as  it  is  mixed  up  with  our  own  understand- 
ing, is  impure.  Man's  understanding  must  be  put  in  bonds, 
and  under  the  government  of  faith.  The  ground  of  faith, 
however,  must  be  this, —  that  He  who  has  spoken  it  is  God 
over  all  and  Truth  itself.  That  we  must  become  like  little 
children  is  to  be  understood,  it  seems,  in  this  sense.  .  .  . 
Faith,  then,  is  purely  God's  gift,  and  is  received  by  man  when 
he  lives  according  to  the  commandments  of  God,  and  when 
he  continually  prays  to  God  for  it." 

Such  experience  and  testimony  is  most  valuable  on  the 
part  of  him  who  was  at  the  very  time  engaged  in  exploring 
the  philosophy  of  the  soul  in  the  body,  to  the  end  that  the 
way  might  be  made  clearer  for  the  understanding  to  arrive  at 
the  true  objects  of  faith.  It  is  to  be  noted,  however,  that  the 
submission  of  the  understanding  which  he  here  enjoins,  is  to 
the  faith  given  by  the  grace  of  God  in  the  inner  mind. 


SPIRITUAL  PREPARATION. 

"April  19  and  20.  ...  God  be  thanked  and  praised  !  I 
do  not  will  to  be  my  own ;  I  am  certain  of  it,  and  believe 
that  Thou,  O  God,  lettest  me  be  Thine,  all  my  life  long,  and 
that  Thou  dost  not  take  away  Thy  Holy  Spirit  from  me, 
which  strengthens  and  upholds  me. 

"April  21  and  22.  ...  On  awaking  I  heard  the  words, 
'  All  is  grace  ; '  by  which  is  meant  that  all  that  has  happened 
is  of  grace,  and  for  the  best.  Afterwards,  because  it  seemed 
to  me  I  was  so  far  separated  from  God  that  I  could  not  yet 
think  of  Him  in  a  sufficiently  vivid  manner,  I  came  into  a 
state  of  doubt  whether  I  should  not  direct  my  journey  home- 
wards ;  a  crowd  of  confused  reasons  came,  and  my  body  was 
seized  with  a  tremor.  Yet  I  gathered  courage  and  perceived 
that  I  had  come  here  to  do  what  was  best  of  all,  and  that  I 
had  received  a  talent  for  the  promotion  of  God's  glory.  I  saw 
that  all  had  helped  together  to  this  end ;  that  the  Spirit  had 
been  with  me  from  my  youth  for  this  very  purpose ;  where- 
fore I  considered  myself  unworthy  of  life  unless  I  followed 
the  straight  course.  I  then  smiled  at  the  other  seducing 
thoughts,  and  thus  at  luxury,  riches,  and  distinction  which  I 
had  pursued.  All  these  I  saw  to  be  vain  ;  and  I  discovered 
that  he  who  is  without  them  and  is  contented,  is  happier  than 
he  is  who  possesses  them.  I  therefore  smiled  at  all  arguments 
by  which  I  might  be  confirmed ;  and  with  God's  help  made 
a  resolution.  May  God  grant  His  help  !  .  .  .  I  further  noticed 
that  faith  is  a  sure  confidence  which  is  received  from  God, 
which,  nevertheless,  consists  in  every  man's  acting  according 
to  his  talent  for  doing  good  to  his  neighbor,  and  continually 
more  and  more ;  that  a  man  must  do  so  from  faith,  because 
God  has  so  ordered  it,  and  must  not  reason  any  more  about 
it,  but  do  the  work  of  love  from  obedience  to  faith,  even 
though  this  be  opposed  to  the  lusts  of  the  body  and  its  per- 
suasions. Wherefore  faith  without  works  is  not  the  right  kind 
of  faith.  A  man  must  in  reality  forsake  himself." 

Thus  we  find  Swedenborg  learning  by  experience,  from  his 
own  needs,  and  under  Divine  guidance,  what  saving  faith  is. 


PURIFICATION.  IQI 

But  dreams  of  savage  dogs  and  of  conflicts  with  other  mon- 
sters alternated  with  states  of  peace  and  joy.  "These  were 
my  infestations,  and  the  struggles  with  my  thoughts  which  I 
had  vanquished.  It  seemed  as  if  the  words  interiorescit 
[he  is  growing  interior],  integratur  [he  is  being  made  whole], 
were  pronounced.  This  means  that  I  am  being  inwardly 
purified  by  means  of  my  infestations."  From  another  dream 
he  learns  "that  God  speaks  with  me,  and  that  I  compre- 
hend only  the  least  portion  of  what  He  says,  because  it  is 
in  representations,  of  which  I  understand  as  yet  but  very 
little ;  and  further  that  He  hears  and  perceives  everything 
that  is  spoken,  and  every  thought  that  any  one  entertains." 
From  other  representative  dreams  he  understands  "that  I 
must  employ  my  remaining  time  in  writing  upon  that  which 
is  higher,  and  not  upon  worldly  things  which  are  far  below ; 
and,  indeed,  that  I  must  write  about  that  which  concerns  the 
very  centre  of  all,  and  that  which  concerns  Christ.  May  God 
be  so  gracious  as  to  enlighten  me  respecting  my  duty,  for  I 
am  still  in  some  obscurity  as  to  the  direction  whither  I  am 
to  turn." 

It  was  not  interiorly  alone  that  -Swedenborg  was  being 
purified.  Several  times  he  notes  dreams  from  which  he  learns 
the  necessity,  for  spiritual  clearness,  of  external  purification 
and  of  rigorous  moderation  of  appetite  for  food.  "  At  the 
idea  that  I  must  henceforth  apply  constraint  to  my  appetite, 
I  came  into  a  strange  condition,  and  as  it  were  into  a  state  of 
chagrin ;  yet  I  was  soon  relieved  from  it  after  praying  and 
singing  a  hymn,  especially  since  I  would  no  longer  be  my 
own,  but  live  as  a  new  creature  in  Christ." 

Early  in  May,  1744,  he  went  to  London,  for  the  better 
prosecution  of  his  work,  The  Animal  Kingdom.  His  dreams, 
interior  struggles,  and  thorough  purification  were  continued. 

11  May  5  and  6.  ...  This  now  is  the  sum  of  all :  First, 
that  there  is  nothing  but  grace  by  which  we  can  be  saved. 
Second,  grace  is  in  Jesus  Christ,  who  is  the  seat  of  grace. 
Third,  love  to  God  in  Christ  promotes  salvation.  Fourth, 


IQ2  SPIRITUAL   PREPARATION. 

man  then  allows  himself  to  be  led  by  the  spirit  of  Jesus. 
Fifth,  everything  that  comes  from  ourselves  is  dead,  and  is 
nothing  but  sin,  and  worthy  of  eternal  damnation.  Sixth,  for 
good  can  come  from  no  other  source  save  the  Lord." 

"London,  May  19  and  20.  On  the  2oth  I  was  to  go  to 
the  Lord's  supper  in  the  Swedish  Church,  after  having  had 
many  pernicious  thoughts,  from  which  I  perceived  that  my 
body  is  in  a  continual  state  of  rebellion  :  this  was  also  repre- 
sented to  me  by  scum,  which  was  to  be  skimmed  off.  On 
Sunday  morning  it  came  very  clearly  from  the  Spirit  into  my 
lips  that  this  [the  Holy  Supper]  is  the  manna  which  descends 
from  heaven.  This  came  to  me  neither  in  sleep  nor  in  full 
wakefulness,  but  it  came  most  distinctly  into  my  thought 
and  into  my  lips  that  by  this  is  signified  Christ  in  the  Lord's 
Supper.  The  day  before  I  had  been  prepared,  so  that  I 
was  interiorly  tranquil  and  peaceful,  being  contented  with 
the  Lord's  dispensation  ;  the  whole  time  also  I  felt  the  strong 
influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  the  whole  body  was  filled 
with  a  delight  in  the  heavenly  kingdom  upon  earth.  ...  In 
this  state  I  hope  to  continue,  so  long  as  by  our  Lord's  grace 
alone  I  walk  in  pure  paths  and  have  right  intentions  ;  for  as 
soon  as  I  turn  aside  and  try  to  find  my  joy  in  worldly  things, 
this  state  of  delight  ceases." 

The  manner  in  which  Swedenborg  up  to  this  period  speaks 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  as  constantly  affecting  him,  is  not  quite  in 
accordance  with  his  habit  after  spiritual  influences  became 
more  familiar  and  better  understood  by  him.  In  our  last 
quotation  the  influence  which  he  calls  of  the  Holy  Spirit  may 
have  been  immediately  that.  But  from  his  later  instruction 
we  should  infer  that  the  influence  of  which  he  commonly 
speaks  as  that  of  "the  Spirit"  was  tne  influence  of  spirits 
and  angels,  sometimes,  but  not  necessarily  always,  under  the 
control  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  It  is  to  be  observed  that  he  had 
not  yet  learned  much  about  the  constant  presence  and  influ- 
ence of  spirits  and  angels.  He  was  moved  by  "the  Evil 
One,"  or  by  "the  Spirit."  About  this  time  he  was  led,  as 


THE  DRAGON. 


193 


John  Wesley  had  been  a  few  years  earlier,  among  "  the  Mora- 
vian Brethren  [in  London],  who  maintain  that  they  are  the 
true  Lutherans,  and  that  they  feel  the  influx  of  the  Holy 
Spirit."  But  he  was  withheld,  and  "not  allowed  to  join  their 
brotherhood."  "God  alone  knows,"  says  he,  "whether  the 
principle  of  the  interior  which  is  the  influx  of  God's  Spirit  is 
constantly  with  man." 

"July  21  and  22.  ...  A  little  child  would  take  hold  of 
me  and  take  me  with  him,  but  it  seemed  to  me  as  if  at  last 
I  refused.  This  means  that  we  must  be  like  children  in  re- 
spect to  the  Lord.  Since  children  have  now  been  represented 
to  me  twice,  and  also  in  the  preceding  night,  I  lighted  upon 
these  thoughts, — that  we  must  not  trouble  ourselves  for  what 
is  spiritual  to  such  a  degree  that  it  comes  to  us  through  our 
own  power,  nor  for  worldly  things ;  but  that  like  children 
we  must  cast  our  cares  on  the  Lord.  ...  On  awaking  I 
had  a  vision,  when  I  saw  much  gold  before  me ;  the  air  was 
full  of  it.  This  denotes  that  the  Lord,  who  disposes  all 
things,  gives  me  in  spiritual  and  in  worldly  matters  all  that 
I  need,  whenever  like  a  child  I  cast  my  care  upon  Him. 

"Juty  29  an(l  3°-  *  saw  a  Sreat  beast  with  wings,  which 
at  times  looked  like  a  human  being,  yet  with  a  great  gorge. 
It  did  not  dare  to  touch  me.  I  pursued  it  with  a  sword, 
yet  I  had  no  chance,  nor  was  I  strong  enough  in  my  arms 
to  strike  it.  At  last  I  saw  it  standing  before  me  with  a  gun, 
from  which  it  fired  something  like  poison,  without  however 
doing  me  any  harm ;  for  I  was  protected.  Immediately  after- 
wards I  thrust  my  sword  into  its  jaws,  yet  without  much 
effect.  I  ascended  higher.  It  seemed  to  me  as  if  some  one 
said  that  it  was  slain.  The  previous  day  I  had  been  think- 
ing of  the  woman  and  the  dragon  in  the  Book  of  Revelation, 
and  I  wished  I  could  be  instrumental  in  killing  the  dragon ; 
when  yet  there  is  not  anything  in  my  power,  but  only  in  the 
Lord's." 

Did  Swedenborg  then  know  the  meaning  of  the  dragon, 
that  it  was  the  doctrine  of  salvation  by  faith  alone,  which  he 

13 


194  SPIRITUAL  PREPARATION. 

was  already  combating  in  his  own  efforts  for  true  regenera- 
tion ?  He  surely  did  not  know,  unless  as  in  a  dream,  that  the 
work  in  store  for  him  was  precisely  that  of  destroying  the 
dragon  and  helping  into  the  world  the  man-child, —  the  true 
doctrine  of  the  Lord's  Church.1  For  he  is  still  laboring  in  the 
day-time  on  The  Animal  Kingdom,  and  a  large  share  of  his 
dreams  at  night  relate  to  his  studies ;  sometimes  encouraging 
him  to  expect  in  them  the  Divine  assistance,  sometimes  warn- 
ing him  not  to  be  withdrawn  by  them  too  far  from  what  was 
more  holy  and  of  more  importance.  In  this  work,  which  he 
had  undertaken  of  his  own  counsel,  we  cannot  suppose  that 
he  would  be  easily  freed  from  confidence  in  his  own  abilities. 
"Afterwards,"  he  says,  "  I  boasted  [in  a  dream]  of  my  strength, 
in  the  presence  of  Assessor  B.  This  signifies  that  daily  I  sin 
against  my  God  in  the  thoughts  which  cling  to  me,  and  from 
which  no  man,  but  God  alone,  can  deliver  me  ;  likewise  that 
I  had  boasted  to  D.  H.  about  my  work.  On  the  following 
day  I  had  intended  to  go  to  the  communion ;  but  I  forbore 
when  from  the  above  I  found  that  none  but  God  alone  can 
give  absolution  from  sins ;  wherefore  it  was  given  me  also  to 
observe  some  things  with  respect  to  confession." 

This  was  written  August  5th.  On  the  2yth  he  notes, — 
"During  the  last  few  days  I  was  very  much  troubled  and 
oppressed  by  my  sins,  which  it  seemed  to  me  had  not  been 
forgiven,  and  which  prevented  my  attending  the  Lord's  Sup- 
per the  last  time.  Yesterday,  however,  it  seemed  to  me  that 
I  had  been  relieved.  During  the  night  the  soles  of  my  feet 
appeared  all  white.  This  signifies  that  my  sins  have  been 
forgiven." 

1  It  is  noticeable  that  Swedenborg  seemed  to  himself  to  thrust  his  sword  into 
the  jaws  of  the  dragon  with,  so  far  as  he  could  see,  but  little  effect;  yet  after  he 
was  taken  up  higher,  he  heard  that  the  beast  was  slain.  With  all  his  might  he 
thrust  the  sharp  sword  of  true  doctrine,  given  him  from  Heaven,  into  the  jaws 
of  the  pernicious  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  alone,  without  perceiving 
much  effect  on  earth.  With  joy  he  must  now  learn  above  that  the  old  doctrine 
is  at  its  end. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

OPENING   OF   SPIRITUAL  SIGHT. 

ABOUT  this  time  Swedenborg  began  to  project  his  treatise 
upon  the  Worship  and  Love  of  God.  He  seems  to  have 
felt  a  Divine  call  to  write  it,  and  at  times  to  have  doubted 
whether  he  ought  not  to  leave  his  other  work  for  the  purpose. 
Yet  it  was  with  reference  to  this  treatise  that  he  received 
the  following  caution  :  — 

"  October  6  and  7.  ...  Afterwards  I  lighted  upon  these 
thoughts  and  received  this  instruction,  namely,  that  all  love  for 
whatever  object, — as,  for  instance,  for  the  work  on  which  I 
am  now  engaged, — when  the  object  is  loved  in  itself  and  not 
as  a  means  to  the  only  love,  which  is  to  God  and  Jesus  Christ, 
is  a  meretricious  love.  For  this  reason  also  this  love  is  always 
compared  in  the  Word  of  God  to  whoredom.  This  I  have 
also  experienced  in  myself.  But  when  love  to  God  is  man's 
chief  love,  then  he  does  not  entertain  for  these  objects  any 
other  kind  of  love  than  that  of  promoting  thereby  his  love 
of  God."  Oct.  9  and  10.  .  .  A  child  fell  over  rny  foot,  hurt 
himself,  and  screamed.  I  helped  him  to  get  up  and  said, 
( Why  do  you  race  so  ? '  This  dream  no  doubt  meant  that 
I  was  too  much  in  a  hurry  with  the  new  work." 

As  thoughts  on  religion  filled  his  mind  he  became  full  of 
zeal  to  instruct  others.  "  Afterwards  I  seemed  to  say  to  my- 
self that  the  Lord  Himself  will  instruct  me.  For,  as  I  dis- 
covered, I  am  in  such  a  state  that  I  know  nothing  on  this 
subject,  except  that  Christ  must  be  all  in  all,  or  God  through 
Christ,  so  that  we  of  ourselves  cannot  contribute  the  least 
towards  it,  and  still  less  strive  for  it :  wherefore  it  is  best  to 


196  OPENING  OF   SPIRITUAL  SIGHT. 

surrender  at  discretion,  and  were  it  possible  to  be  altogether 
passive  in  this  matter,  it  would  be  a  state  of  perfection.  I 
saw  also  in  a  vision  how  some  beautiful  bread  was  presented 
to  me  on  a  plate.  This  was  a  prediction  that  the  Lord  Him- 
self will  instruct  me,  as  soon  as  I  have  attained  that  state  in 
which  I  shall  know  nothing,  and  in  which  all  my  precon- 
ceived notions  will  be  removed  from  me ;  which  is  the  first 
state  of  learning  :  or,  in  other  words,  that  I  must  first  become 
a  child,  and  that  then  I  shall  be  able  to  be  nurtured  in  knowl- 
edge, as  is  being  the  case  with  me  now." 

Yet  this  preparation,  this  work  of  leading  the  strong  man 
to  lay  down  his  confidence  in  his  own  strength  and  his  love 
for  his  own  works  because  his  own,  was  slow  and  difficult, 
perhaps  in  proportion  to  the  greatness  of  the  intellect  and 
of  its  previous  triumphs.  It  was  on  the  1 8th  of  October  that 
he  had  the  dream,  already  quoted,  of  the  big  dog  which  he 
thought  had  been  secured,  and  yet  it  flew  at  him  and  bit 
him.  Again  he  notes, — 

"  October  20  and  21.  It  was  most  gracious  and  wonderful 
that  on  the  day  before  I  had  felt  myself  unworthy  of  all  the 
grace  God  had  been  pleased  to  exhibit  towards  me ;  for  love 
of  my  own  self  and  pride  were  so  deeply  rooted  in  me.  I 
therefore  prayed  to  God  that  He  would  remove  them  from 
me,  since  this  is  not  in  my  own  power.  In  the  evening  I 
found  myself  in  a  most  strange  state  of  mind,  such  as  I  had 
never  experienced  before  :  for  I  despaired  of  God's  grace, 
although  I  knew  that  God  is  so  gracious,  and  that  He  has 
shown  greater  grace  towards  me  than  towards  any  one  else. 
There  was  an  anxiety  in  the  soul,  but  not  in  the  mind,  though 
I  became  conscious  of  it  only  in  the  mind  itself,  without  feel- 
ing any  pain  in  the  body.  Afterwards  I  fell  asleep,  when  it 
seemed  to  me  as  if  I  were  closely  pursued  by  two  dogs. 
After  a  long  time  I  got  out  of  their  reach,  when  I  was  told  in 
my  thoughts  that  the  object  of  these  strange  pains  was  to  cure 
me  of  them.  Whenever,  therefore,  the  root  of  what  is  deeply 
ingrained  in  man  is  removed,  such  a  feeling  of  pain  is  caused. 


THE  WORSHIP  AND  LOVE   OF   GOD. 


197 


This  is  well  worth  being  remembered  and  preserved  in  the 
thoughts." 

On  the  2  yth  of  October  he  began  the  work  on  the  Wor- 
ship and  Love  of  God,  and  laid  aside,  never  to  resume,  The 
Animal  Kingdom.  "  May  God  lead  me  in  the  right  way  ! 
Christ  said  that  I  must  not  undertake  anything  without  Him." 
"  In  the  morning  on  awaking  I  fell  into  a  swoon  or  fainting 
fit,  similar  to  that  which  I  experienced  about  six  or  seven 
years  ago  at  Amsterdam,  when  I  entered  upon  the  Economy 
of  the  Animal  Kingdom;  but  it  was  much  more  subtile,  so 
that  I  was  almost  dead.  It  came  upon  me  as  soon  as  I  saw 
the  light.  I  threw  myself  upon  my  face,  when  it  gradually 
passed  off.  In  the  mean  time  short,  interrupted  slumbers 
took  possession  of  me  ;  so  that  this  swoon,  or  deliquium,  was 
deeper,  but  I  soon  got  over  it.  This  signifies  that  my  head 
is  being  cleared,  and  is  in  fact  being  cleansed  of  all  that 
would  obstruct  these  thoughts  :  as  was  also  the  case  the  last 
time,  because  it  gave  me  penetration,  especially  whilst  writ- 
ing. This  was  represented  to  me  now  in  that  I  appeared 
to  write  a  fine  hand." 

Here  ends  abruptly  this  wonderful  record  of  the  introduc- 
tion of  a  man,  by  gradual  separation  from  the  life  and  work 
that  was  natural  to  him,  into  spiritual  life,  spiritual  association, 
and  spiritual  labor  in  the  service  of  his  Master.  For  the 
completion  of  this  process  we  must  refer  to  what  he  says  in- 
cidentally in  his  various  works,  and  in  answer  to  inquiries. 
That  this  wondrous  revelation  to  him  of  heights  of  grace  and 
mercy  and  bliss  he  had  never  conceived,  together  with  depths 
of  selfishness  and  sin  in  his  own  nature  he  had  never  sound- 
ed, was  given  in  completion  of  the  preparation  of  his  long 
studies  for  some  great  service  to  men,  he  seems  already  per- 
suaded ;  but  what  this  service  is  to  be,  he  does  not  yet  fore- 
see. For  the  time  being  and  for  himself  the  purpose  of  the 
revelation  is  plain,— to  lead  him  to  lay  down  his  own  will  and 
his  own  self-intelligent  prudence,  so  as  to  come  nearer  to  the 
Lord  and  to  be  ready  and  willing  to  do  His  bidding,  under 


198  OPENING  OF   SPIRITUAL  SIGHT. 

His  guidance,  in  place  of  his  own.  This  change  of  heart  re- 
quired of  him  and  granted  to  him,  this  acceptance  of  the 
Divine  will  in  place  of  his  own, — was  it  not  that  which  our 
Lord  Himself  alone  perfectly  fulfilled  in  His  own  humanity, 
that  which  He  enjoined  on  all  who  would  follow  Him  in  the 
regeneration,  and  that  by  the  fulfilment  of  which  in  them- 
selves He  would  come  again  to  them  and  manifest  Himself 
to  them? 

The  coming  again  of  the  Lord  was  not  to  be  a  merely 
temporary  coming,  for  a  transient  purpose,  but  the  complete 
fulfilment  of  His  purpose,  partially  fulfilled  at  His  first  com- 
ing, of  being  forever  with  men,  their  God.  From  the  very 
beginning  the  Lord  has  sought  to  be  present  to  the  con- 
sciousness of  men,  through  the  thunder  and  through  the  still 
small  voice  of  nature,  through  revelation,  tradition,  visions, 
and  dreams,  in  their  reason,  and  in  their  heart.  By  the  flesh 
which  He  took  upon  Himself,  He  became  in  a  measure  visible 
and  audible  to  them :  not  in  all  His  fulness., —  for  the  finite 
cannot  fully  manifest  the  Infinite  ;  not  for  all  time, — for  the 
flesh  is  but  for  a  moment.  But  by  bringing  His  Divine  Life 
down  into  human  life,  while  dwelling  in  the  flesh,  He  ac- 
quired a  real  presence  with  man  in  an  unlimited  and  per- 
manent manner,  with  all  His  fulness  and  forever,  when  the 
material  finiteness  was  dissolved.  He  did  not  go  away  from 
the  disciples  when  He  ascended  up  into  Heaven,  but  His 
Divine  fulness  became  too  great  for  their  vision,  and  so  He 
appeared  to  be  withdrawn  from  their  sight.  Previously  it  had 
been  said,  "The  Holy  Spirit  was  not  yet,  because  Jesus 
was  not  yet  glorified."  After  He  had  ascended,  after  the  dis- 
solution of  what  was  finite,  commenced  in  the  sepulchre,  was 
complete,  from  all  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead  in  infinite 
humanity  came  the  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  the  disciples, 
working  its  own  works  through  them.  Thus  was  their  Lord 
present  with  them  everywhere  and  at  all  times,  more  nearly, 
more  intimately,  and  more  completely  than  when  He  was  in 
their  sight. 


THE  SECOND   COMING   OF   THE   LORD. 


199 


In  this  way  the  Lord  desired  to  be  thenceforth  dwelling 
with  men,  their  God.  Nothing  was  lacking  on  His  part.  All 
that  was  needed  was  that  men  should  keep  their  hearts  open 
to  Him  standing  at  the  door  and  knocking.  But  their  hearts 
were  yet  hardened,  and  they  soon  closed  the  door.  This  He 
had  foreseen.  He  knew  but  too  well  that  as  yet  it  was  be- 
cause they  had  been  fed  and  were  full  that  they  followed 
Him.  But  He  was  preparing  them,  as  fast  as  could  be  done 
consistently  with  their  freedom,  for  a  reception  of  Himself 
that  would  be  from  free  choice  of  His  perfection,  in  place 
of  their  imperfection ;  from  love,  and  therefore  permanent. 
And  this  new  reception  He  foretold  as  a  new  coming  on  His 
part,  though  He  is  always  at  the  door.  He  foretold  it  in  two 
forms.  In  the  one  it  was  to  be  not  with  observation,  but  in 
the  stillness  of  the  heart,  the  silent  entrance  of  the  Spirit  of 
Truth,  whom  the  world  cannot  receive,  because  it  seeth  Him 
not,  neither  knoweth  Him ;  but  the  true  disciples,  they  who 
have  followed  their  Lord  in  the  regeneration,  know  Him  ;  for 
He  dwelleth  with  them  and  shall  be  in  them.  This  is  His 
entrance  into  the  heart  when  the  door  at  which  He  always 
knocketh,  at  last  is  opened.1  In  the  other  form  it  is  foretold 
that  the  coming  of  the  Son  of  Man  shall  be  in  the  clouds  of 
heaven,  with  power  and  great  glory.  This  is  a  presentation 
to  the  eye  of  the  spirit,  to  the  understanding,  that  should 
make  one  with  the  entrance  into  the  heart.  How,  after  the 
opening  of  the  heart,  this  presentation  of  the  Lord  to  the 
understanding,  in  the  clouds  of  heaven  with  power  and  great 
glory,  was  effected  with  Swedenborg,  and  how  his  own  work 

1  It  is  curious  to  find  a  better  appreciation  of  the  Spirit  of  Truth  than 
prevailed  in  the  Churches  among  the  Alchemists  or  Hermetic  philosophers, 
commonly  supposed  to  be  seeking  the  philosopher's  stone  for  the  making  of 
gold,  but,  according  to  others,  handing  down  tinder  the  symbol  of  the  stone  a  very 
ancient  study  for  the  perfecting  of  man.  Thomas  Vaughan,  writing  on  Her- 
metics,  or  Alchemy,  in  the  middle  of  the  iyth  century,  said  :  "  God  the  Father 
is  the  metaphysical,  supercelestial  Sun  ;  the  Second  Person  is  the  Light ;  and 
the  third  is  Amor  Igneus,  or  a  Divine  Heat  proceeding  from  both.  Now  with- 
out the  presence  of  this  Heat,  there  is  no  reception  of  the  Light,  and  by  conse- 
quence no  reception  from  the  Father  of  Light." 


20O  OPENING   OF   SPIRITUAL  SIGHT. 

for  which  he  was  prepared  was  found  to  be  in  aiding  this 
presentation  to  the  understanding  of  his  fellow-men,  will  be 
seen  in  what  follows. 

Let  us  notice  first,  that,  coincidently  with  his  increasing 
submission  of  heart  to  the  Divine  guidance,  we  find  a 
growing  sensitiveness  or  openness  to  spiritual  impressions. 
Indeed,  whether  as  a  constitutional  peculiarity,  or  as  the 
consequence  of  his  absorbed  habit  of  thought,  Swedenborg 
had  a  certain  faculty  of  retrocession  from  physical  activity 
when  thinking  deeply.  In  The  Animal  Kingdom  he  had 
remarked,  "When  the  mind  is  thinking  very  intently,  and 
breathing  tacitly  and  slowly,  then  the  lungs,  elevated  to  a 
certain  degree,  appear  in  like  manner  to  keep  silence,  and  to 
send  out  and  draw  in  the  air  almost  imperceptibly,  so  as  not 
to  disturb  the  analyses  of  the  rational  mind  by  any  motion  on 
their  part  "  (part  ii.  157).  And  again,  as  quoted  by  Dr.  Wil- 
kinson,— "  If  we  carefully  attend  to  profound  thoughts,  we 
shall  find  that  when  we  draw  breath,  a  host  of  ideas  rush 
from  beneath  as  through  an  opened  door  into  the  sphere  of 
thought, — >  whereas  when  we  hold  the  breath,  and  slowly  let  it 
out,  we  deeply  keep  the  while  in  the  tenor  of  our  thought, 
and  communicate  as  it  were  with  the  higher  faculty  of  the 
soul ;  as  I  have  observed  in  my  own  person  times  without 
number.  Retaining  or  holding  back  the  breath  is  equivalent 
to  having  intercourse  with  the  soul :  attracting  or  drawing  it? 
amounts  to  intercourse  with  the  body." 1 

It  appears  from  Swedenborg's  teachings  that  in  the  other 
world  there  is  a  vast  variety  in  the  manner  of  breathing,  the 
breathing  of  each  society  being  in  consonance  with  and  ex- 
pressing its  state  of  thought.  The  world  of  spirits,  where  all 
are  first  gathered  after  death,  has  a  common  external  breath- 
ing, naturally  connected  with  the  physical  respiration  of  men 
while  yet  in  the  world.  With  this  breathing  flows  in  our 

1  With  this  it  is  instructive  to  compare  the  experience  of  the  author  of  Self- 
formation,  or  the  History  of  an  Individual  Mind,  who  found  his  mental  power 
to  serve  him  only  during  expiration. 


INTERIOR   RESPIRATION.  2OI 

common  course  of  thought.  The  breathing  of  angels  is  more 
interior,  more  rapid,  and  less  sensible.  It  is  possible  also  for 
men,  when  their  thought  is  interior,  elevated,  and  abstracted 
from  the  world,  to  have  their  ordinary  sensible  breathing  sus- 
pended, with  its  common  course  of  thought,  and  to  have  it 
replaced  by  a  more  subtile,  tacit  respiration  in  sympathy  with 
that  pf  heaven  :  at  such  times  men  come  more  immediately 
into  communication  with  angels,  and  receive  their  thoughts, 
or  even  become  conscious  of  their  presence.  Such,  accord- 
ing to  Swedenborg,  was  the  state  of  the  men  represented  by 
Adam  in  the  Garden  of  Eden.  Since  the  Fall  it  has  become 
rare  ;  but  something  of  the  kind  seems  to  have  been  given  to 
Swedenborg  in  his  infancy,  and  again  in  the  deeper  studies  of 
his  later  years  :  — 

"  I  was  first  accustomed  to  breathe  in  this  way  in  infancy, 
when  praying  my  morning  and  evening  prayers :  then  at 
times  afterwards,  when  I  was  exploring  the  agreements  of  the 
heart  and  lungs,  especially  when  I  was  writing  from  inner 
thought  what  I  published  on  these  subjects,  and  this  during 
several  years.  At  this  time  I  noticed  frequently  that  there 
was  a  tacit  respiration,  scarcely  sensible,  about  which  it  was 
given  afterwards  to  think,  and  then  to  write.  In  this  way 
for  many  years  from  infancy  I  was  introduced  into  such 
breathings,  .especially  through  intense  speculation,  in  which 
the  [ordinary]  breathing  subsided;  otherwise  no  intense 
speculation  of  truth  can  be  given.  Then  afterwards,  when 
heaven  was  opened,  so  that  I  spoke  with  spirits,  I  breathed 
so  completely  in  this  way  that  I  did  not  take  in  a  [common] 
breath  for  the  space  of  about  an  hour,  only  just  enough  air 
being  drawn  to  enable  me  to  think :  in  this  way  I  was  intro- 
duced by  the  Lord  into  interior  modes  of  breathing.  Per- 
haps also  in  sleep ;  for  I  observed  sometimes  that  when  I 
was  sinking  into  sleep,  respiration  was  almost  taken  away  from 
me,  so  that  I  awoke  and  caught  my  breath.  Moreover,  when 
I  am  observing,  writing,  and  thinking  nothing  of  the  kind,  I 
suppose  that  my  respiration  is  checked  without  my  reflecting 


2O2  OPENING  OF  SPIRITUAL  SIGHT. 

upon  it,  and  such  things  take  place  that  the  changes  are  in- 
numerable. Nor  could  I  observe  the  variations  at  the  time, 
because  they  took  place  without  my  reflection.  This  now  I 
can  say,  that  each  state,  each  sphere,  and  thus  each  society, 
especially  the  interior  ones,  has  in  me  a  fitting  respiration, 
into  which  I  bring  myself  without  reflection.  By  this  as  a 
means  it  is  given  me  also  to  be  among  spirits  and  angels." 
(S.  D.  3464.) 

Yet  it  was  long  after  spiritual  manifestations  began  to  occur 
to  him,  before  he  thought  of  the  possibility  of  conversing 
with  spirits.  Indeed,  he  knew  nothing  about  spirits.  He  be- 
lieved in  the  Holy  Spirit  and  in  the  power  of  the  Devil.  He 
believed  in  angels,  but  knew  nothing  of  the  world  filled  with 
the  spirits  and  angels  who  had  once  been  men.  We  see 
how  gradually  the  knowledge  came  to  him  :  — 

"  October  3  to  6.  I  have  noticed  several  times  that  there 
are  various  kinds  of  spirits.  The  one  Spirit,  which  is  that  of 
Christ,  is  the  only  one  that  has  all  blessedness  with  it ;  by 
other  spirits  man  is  enticed  a  thousand  ways  to  follow  them, 
but  woe  to  those  who  do  so.  Another  time  Korah  and 
Dathan  occurred  to  me,  who  brought  strange  fire  to  the  altar, 
an'd  could  not  offer  it.  Such  is  the  case  when  a  different  fire 
is  introduced  than  that  which  comes  from  Christ.  I  saw  also 
something  like  a  fire  coming  to  me.  It  is  necessary  there- 
fore that  a  distinction  should  be  made  between  spirits,  which, 
however,  cannot  be  done  except  through  Christ  Himself  and 
His  Spirit. 

Some  years  later,  after  referring  to  the  sundry  spiritual 
manifestations  which  we  have  already  described,  he  says, — 

"At  last  a  spirit  spoke  a  few  words  to  me,  when  I  was 
greatly  astonished  at  his  perceiving  my  thoughts.  After- 
wards, when  my  mind  was  opened,  I  was  greatly  astonished 
that  I  could  converse  with  spirits ;  as  the  spirits  were  aston- 
ished that  I  should  wonder.  From  this  it  may  be  concluded 
how  difficult  it  is  for  man  to  believe  that  he  is  governed  by 
the  Lord  through  spirits,  and  how  difficult  it  is  for  him  to 


FIRST   OPEN   VISION.  2O3 

give  up  the  opinion  that  he  lives  his  own  life  of  himself  with- 
out the  agency  of  spirits." 

The  date  of  this  occurrence  appears  to  have  been  the 
middle  of  April,  1745,  while  still  engaged,  perhaps,  on  The 
Worship  and  Love  of  God.  The  fullest  account  that  is  pre- 
served is  given  by  his  friend  Robsahm,  who  says  that  in 
answer  to  his  own  inquiry  where  and  how  it  was  granted  him 
to  see  and  hear  what  takes  place  in  the  other  world,  Sweden- 
borg  answered, — 

"  I  was  in  London,  and  dined  rather  late  at  the  inn  where 
I  was  in  the  habit  of  dining  and  where  I  had  my  own  room. 
My  thoughts  were  engaged  on  the  subjects  we  have  been 
discussing.  I  was  hungry,  and  ate  with  a  good  appetite. 
Towards  the  close  of  the  meal  I  noticed  a  sort  of  dimness 
before  my  eyes ;  this  became  denser,  and  I  then  saw  the 
floor  covered  with  the  most  horrid  crawling  reptiles,  such  as 
snakes,  frogs,  and  similar  creatures.  I  was  amazed,  for  I  was 
perfectly  conscious  and  my  thoughts  were  clear.  At  last  the 
darkness  increased  still  more  ;  but  it  disappeared  all  at  once, 
and  I  then  saw  a  man  sitting  in  the  corner  of  the  room  :  as  I 
was  then  alone,  I  was  very  much  frightened  at  his  words  ;  for 
he  said,  l Eat  not  so  much.'  All  became  black  again  before 
my  eyes,  but  immediately  it  cleared  away,  and  I  found  myself 
alone  in  the  room." 

That  this  "man"  was  a  spirit  appears  from  Swedenborg's 
statement  about  his  astonishment  when  a  spirit  first  spoke  a 
few  words  to  him,  and  from  Robsahm's  own  statement  that 
this  account  was  given  in  answer  to  his  inquiry  where  and 
how  he  first  came  to  see  and  hear  spirits.  It  would  seem, 
then,  that  Robsahm  has  made  a  little  confusion  in  what  he 
goes  on  to  say  about  the  same  man's  appearing  the  following 
night.  And  yet  as,  according  to  Swedenborg,  when  the  Lord 
appears  to  angels  and  men,  He  does  so  by  filling  an  angel 
with  His  presence  and  speaking  through  his  mouth,  it  may 
be  that  it  was  the  same  angel  from  the  Lord  who  had  been 
present  with  him  in  the  spiritual  thoughts  on  which  he  was 


2O4  OPENING  OF  SPIRITUAL  SIGHT. 

engaged  in  the  day-time,  and  then  warned  him  not  to  yield 
too  much  to  the  demands  of  the  body,  and  again  in  the  night 
instructed  him  as  to  the  labors  for  which  the  Lord  was  prepar- 
ing him, —  first  seeming  as  a  man,  giving  human  admonition, 
and  then  as  the  Lord,  uttering  His  commands.  According  to 
Robsahm,  Swedenborg  continued, —  "I  went  home;  and 
during  the  night  the  same  man  revealed  himself  to  me  again, 
but  I  was  not  frightened  now.  He  then  said  that  he  was  the 
Lord  God,  the  Creator  of  the  world,  and  the  Redeemer, 
and  that  He  had  chosen  me  to  unfold  to  men  the  spiritual 
sense  of  the  Scripture,  and  that  He  Himself  would  show  to 
me  what  I  should  write  on  this  subject.  That  same  night 
also  were  opened  to  me,  so  that  I  became  thoroughly  con- 
vinced of  their  reality,  the  world  of  spirits,  heaven,  and  hell ; 
and  I  recognized  there  many  acquaintances  of  .every  con- 
dition in  life.  From  that  day  I  gave  up  the  study  of  all 
worldly  science  and  labored  in  spiritual  things,  according  as 
the  Lord  had  commanded  me  to  write.  Afterwards  the  Lord 
opened  my  eyes,  very  often  daily,  so  that  in  midday  I  could 
see  into  the  other  world,  and  in  a  state  of  perfect  wakefulness 
converse  with  angels  and  spirits." 

The  remarkable  absence  of  dignity  and  circumstance,  such 
as  imagination  would  invent,  in  this  first  introduction  to  the 
sight  and  hearing  of  the  other  world,  witnesses  nothing  against 
its  plain  truth.  We  may  wonder  that  the  first  announcement 
should  be  so  simple  a  prohibition.  On -this  Swedenborg  says 
not  a  word.  We  have  no  reason  to  suppose  him  an  inordi- 
nate eater ;  but  doubtless  in  hunger  he  gave  himself  up  for 
the  time  to  the  body's  demand  for  satisfaction,  and  his  mind 
fell  from  its  high  thoughts.  The  spirits  or  angels  with  him 
would  perceive  his  fall,  and  would,  if  opportunity  were  given, 
rebuke  him.  Fasting,  as  well  as  prayer,  is  the  means  of  re- 
lease from  selfishness  and  evil.  With  Swedenborg  there  had 
been  reformation  of  life,  and  then  internal  regeneration  of  a 
very  deep  kind.  This  regeneration,  as  we  have  seen,  must 
needs  work  outwards  till  it  cleansed  the  whole  life,  more  per- 


PURIFICATION. 


205 


fectly,  because  from  internal  ground,  than  the  first  reformation 
could  do.  It  may  well  be  that  the  last  stronghold  of  selfish, 
spirits,  not  yet  given  up  to  the  Lord  of  all,  was  that  of  out- 
ward sense.  So  our  Lord  Himself  finished  the  work  of  pu- 
rifying His  humanity  by  overcoming  the  resistance  of  the 
body.  So  the  last  thing  He  did  for  the  disciples,  before  giving 
to  them  the  bread  and  the  wine  that  represented  His  own 
life,  was  to  wash  their  feet,  that  they  might  be  clean  every 
whit.  So,  too,  Swedenborg  tells  us,  those  who  are  internally 
prepared  for  heaven  and  who  have  been  delivered  from  all 
evil  except  that  which  belongs  to  the  infirmities  of  the  body, 
are  taken  up  into  heaven  immediately  after  death.  Whether 
his  own  deliverance  from  evil  was  now  completed,  we  cannot 
say ;  but  such  is  the  appearance.  Indeed,  we  have  in  the 
"Diary"  a  single  line  of  direct  testimony.  He  is  describing, 
under  date  of  Dec.  i,  1748,  the  return,  when  a  man  comes 
into  the  other  life,  of  whatever  evil  he  has  done  in  the  world, 
with  all  its  hate  and  misery,  so  that  he  lives  as  it  were  his 
life  over  again.  But  he  adds  that  this  is  true  only  of  the  evil ; 
that  with  the  good  all  their  good  states  of  love  and  friend- 
ship return  with  highest  joy  and  happiness.  Then  follows  the 
simple  note,  "  Experience  that  there  was  not  evil  with  me." 
From  this  we  may  infer  that,  by  the  predominance  of  the 
good  with  him,  what  evil  there  had  been  was  now  mercifully 
removed,  not  to  be  a  means  of  assault  from  evil  spirits. 

Spiritual  temptations,  however,  he  had  to  undergo,  many 
and  severe ;  that  is,  assaults  of  evil  spirits  on  all  that  he  held 
good  and  true.  In  the  war  that  was  to  ensue  between  the 
powers  of  heaven  and  the  powers  of  hell,  between  the  light  of 
the  coming  of  the  Lord  in  His  Word,  and  the  darkness  of 
priestcraft  and  infidelity,  he  held  the  advanced  post.  He 
was  the  standard-bearer  on  earth,  the  witness  of  what  was  to 
come.  Against  the  standard,  against  his  testimony,  there  was 
of  necessity  a  combined  attack  of  all  the  powers  of  hell.  Of 
course  he  suffered  spiritual  violence,  but  undismayed  and 
unhurt ;  for  it  was  not  himself  against  whom  they  warred. 


2O6  OPENING  OF  SPIRITUAL  SIGHT. 

When  they  wished  to  destroy  him,  they  said  that  they  could 
not,  because  he  was  nothing;  if  he  were  anything,  they  could 
do  it.  (S.  D.  4067.)  Thus  he  was  shown  to  the  life,  that  if 
he  regarded  anything  in  himself  as  his  own,  the  devils  would 
have  something  to  attack,  and  would  destroy  him.  It  was  the 
Spirit  of  Truth,  coming  to  guide  into  all  truth,  that  was 
the  object  of  their  attack;  and  this  defended  Itself  and 
him.  Thus  he  says,  when  unfolding  the  spiritual  sense  of 
Genesis, — 

"  I  have  now  for  some  years,  though  also  in  the  body,  been 
with  spirits  in  the  other  life,  and  surrounded  by  evil  spirits, 
yea  the  worst,  to  whom  it  was  permitted  to  pour  forth  their 
venom  and  infest  me  in  every  way  they  could ;  yet  they  could 
not  hurt  the  least  hair,  I  was  so  protected  by  the  Lord." 
(A.C.  59.) 

Even  on  the  seas,  it  would  seem,  this  calming  protection 
was  about  him.  In  the  fulfilment  of  his  mission,  writing  and 
publishing,  he  was  frequently  crossing  the  stormy  North  Sea, 
passing  to  and  fro  between  London  and  Stockholm  or  Am- 
sterdam. The  master  of  a  ship  in  which  he  often  sailed  told 
him  that  he  would  always  be  welcome  to  his  passage,  for  with 
him  on  board  the  voyage  was  sure  to  be  prosperous. 

In  many  ways  we  see  in  Swedenborg,  a  fellow-servant,  that 
submission  of  all  things  to  the  Divine  will,  that  guidance  and 
protection  by  the  Spirit,  of  which  our  Lord  gave  us  the  per- 
fect example  in  His  own  life  on  earth,  and  which  He  promised 
to  all  who  would  follow  Him  in  the  regeneration.  That  it 
was  given  to  Swedenborg  in  so  eminent  a  degree  was  at  once 
as  the  necessary  means  for  the  service  given  him  to  perform, 
and  as  an  example  and  aid  to  us  in  preparation  for  what  our 
Lord  has  in  store  for  us  at  this  His  final  coming. 

The  immediate  work  and  the  great  work  given  Swedenborg 
to  do  was  the  unfolding  of  the  spiritual  sense  from  within  the 
literal  sense  of  the  Word.  To  this  labor,  for  which,  as  we 
have  found,  he  had  previously  some  inclination  and  some 
special  preparation,  he  now  addressed  himself  with  all  dili- 


THE   WORSHIP   AND  LOVE  OF  GOD.  2O/ 

gence,  after  seeing  through  the  press  his  little  work  on  the 
Worship  and  Love  of  God.  This  work  we  have  seen  begun 
in  1 744,  and  it  was  published  as  far  as  completed,  two  parts, 
in  1745.  It  is  interesting  as  marking  the  transition  period, 
when  the  author's  thoughts  were  turning  to  spiritual  things 
in  a  certain  ecstasy,  before  they  had  come  into  clear  light  and 
he  had  settled  down  to  his  work  of  writing  what  was  Divinely 
directed.  It  is  a  philosophic  prose-poem  on  the  creation 
of  the  earth  and  the  birth  and  education  of  Adam  and  Eve, 
of  fine  fancy  and  great  beauty,  from  which  we  should  quote 
largely  if  we  had  not  more  weighty  matter  pressing  on  our 
attention.  Being  questioned  about  it  in  later  years,  the 
author  is  said  to  have  replied  that  the  work  "was  certainly 
founded  on  truth,  but  that  somewhat  of  egotism  had  intro- 
duced itself  into  it,  as  he  had  made  a  playful  use  in  it  of  the 
Latin  language,  on  account  of  having  been  ridiculed  for  the 
simplicity  of  his  Latin  style  in  later  years.  For  this  reason 
he  did  not  regard  it  as  equal  to  his  other  works."  Whatever 
of  personal  exhilaration  came  to  him  on  his  first  introduction 
to  the  study  of  Divine  things,  may  be  said  to  have  effervesced 
and  thrown  off  all  its  foam  in  this  little  work. .  From  this 
time  forth  we  have  nothing  but  the  clearest  statement,  in  the 
utmost  simplicity  of  language,  with  no  thought  of  self  and  not 
the  least  labor  for  effect.  The  change  is  well  stated  by  Dr. 
Wilkinson,  in  his  "Biography"  :  — 

"  Certainly,  in  turning  from  his  foregone  life  to  that  which 
now  occupies  us,  we  seem  to  be  treating  of  another  person, — 
of  one  on  whom  the  great  change  has  passed,  who  has  tasted 
the  blessings  of  death  and  disburdened  his  spiritual  part,  of 
mundane  cares,  sciences,  and  philosophies.  The  spring  of 
his  lofty  flights  in  nature  sleeps  in  the  dust  beneath  his  feet. 
The  liberal  charm  of  his  rhetoric  is  put  off,  never  to  be  re- 
sumed. ...  It  is  a  clear  instance  of  disembodiment, —  of 
emancipation  from  a  worldly  lifetime ;  and  we  have  now  to 
contemplate  Swedenborg,  still  a  mortal,  as  he  rose  into  the 
other  world.  From  that  elevation  he  as  little  recurred  to  his 


268  OPENING   OF   SPIRITUAL  SIGHT. 

scientific  life,  though  he  had  its  spirit  with  him,  as  a  freed 
soul  to  the  body  in  the  tomb :  he  only  possessed  it  in  a 
certain  high  memory,  which  offered  its  result  to  his  new 
.pursuits." 

Our  Lord  in  the  flesh  spoke  in  a  two-fold  capacity, — as 
God  in  declaring  that  He  was  one  with  the  Father,  that  who- 
ever had  seen  Him  had  seen  the  Father,  that  all  power  was 
given  unto  Him  in  heaven  and  on  earth ;  and  in  calling  all 
men  unto  Him  for  their  salvation ;  but  as  man  in  declaring 
that  he  did  nothing  of  himself,  in  resigning  his  own  will  to  the 
Father's  will,  and  in  giving  up  his  mortal  life  on  the  cross. 
In  all  this  His  purpose  was  at  once  to  show  men  His  Divine 
love  for  them,  and  to  give  them  an  example  and  a  help- 
ing hand,  in  their  own  nature,  in  what  this  love  required 
of  them. 

To  understand  this  mystery, —  how  in  Jesus  Christ  dwelt  all 
the  fulness  of  the  Godhead  bodily,  how  in  Him  they  saw  both 
God  and  man,  the  Father  brought  forth  to  view  in  the  Son, — 
required  an  understanding  of  discrete  degrees  of  existence, 
of  the  indwelling  of  one  within  another,  and  of  the  action  of 
the  outer,  as  of  itself,  but  from  the  life  of  the  degree  within, 
not  possessed  by  the  men  of  that  age.  Paul,  almost  alone, 
seems  to  have  had  some  apprehension  of  this  philosophy, 
in  his  declaration  that  there  is  a  spiritual  body  as  well  as  a 
natural  body,  and  that  the  things  of  God  are  not  received  by 
the  natural  man,  but  are  spiritually  discerned.  The  Church, 
as  a  whole,  had  no  appreciation  of  it.  In  fact,  it  requires 
something  more  than  intellectual  acumen  for  its  right  appre- 
hension. In  broad  terms  it  may  be  stated  that  man  can  have 
no  appreciation  of  what  does  not  exist,  in  an  image,  in  him- 
self. Now  there  exist  in  every  man,  open  or  latent,  degrees 
natural,  spiritual,  and  celestial.  The  natural  degree  is  first 
opened,  being  that  of  natural  light, —  the  light  of  this  world, 
of  the  senses  and  of  natural  reason.  With  a  learned  man  it  is 
open  wider  and  deeper  than  with  an  ignorant  one,  but  it  is 


SPIRITUAL   DEGREES. 

the  natural  degree  still.  The  spiritual  degree  is  entirely  dis- 
tinct :  its  light  is  the  light  of  heaven,  the  light  of  love  to  the 
neighbor,  by  which  things  are  seen  totally  different  from  what 
they  appear  by  the  light  of  the  world  and  of  natural  love  to 
self.  This  is  the  degree  in  which,  as  Paul  says,  the  things  of 
God  are  spiritually  discerned,  which  are  to  the  natural  mind 
but  foolishness.  But  this  spiritual  degree  lies  unknown  un- 
til it  is  opened,  and  it  is  opened  in  no  other  way  than  by 
resistance  to  the  demands  of  the  natural  state,  as  evil,  and 
prayer  to  the  Lord  for  deliverance.  And  when  the  mind  is 
opened  into  this  new  stage  of  life,  the  man  is  born  again. 

Regeneration  is  the  means  by  which  spiritual  discernment 
comes,  by  which  the  mind  learns  to  appreciate  the  dis- 
tinction of  degrees,  and  is  enabled  to  understand  the  rela- 
tion of  the  Son  to  the  Father,  of  the  Divine  to  the  Divine 
Human.1  But  regeneration  has  not  distinguished  the  Chris- 
tian Church.  The  Lord  taught  it  as  the  means  of  entrance 
into  His  kingdom  and  illustrated  it,  exhibiting  its  type  in 
the  glorification  of  His  Humanity,  by  which  He  replaced 
the  human  will  with  the  Divine ;  but  Christians,  as  a  body, 
have  not  followed  Him  in  the  regeneration,  have  not  ac- 
cepted His  Divine  will  in  place  of  their  own.  They  have 
desired  heaven,  but  they  have  desired  it  as  they  would  have 
desired  higher  places  at  this  world's  tables,  from  their  own 
will  and  their  love  of  what  is  good  for  themselves  ;  not  from 
His  will  and  His  love  for  the  good  of  others.  This  is  the 
reason  that  they  have  not  understood  in  its  simplicity  how, 
by  the  glorification,  the  Lord  in  His  Humanity  accepted  the 
will  of  the  Father,  that  is,  the  Father  Himself,  as  His  own 

1  It  is  related  of  the  Rev.  John  Clowes,  one  of  the  earliest  translators  of  Swe- 
danborg's  works,  that  he  purchased  a  copy  of  The  True  Christian  Religion,  on 
the  advice  of  a  friend,  but  at  first  saw  nothing  in  it  to  interest  him.  Some  time 
after,  as  he  was  about  leaving  home  for  a  visit,  he  took  down  the  volume,  op- 
ened it,  and  was  annoyed  at  seeing  the  phrase  "  Divinum  Humanum"  which 
had  no  meaning  to  him.  He  put  up  the  book  and  went  his  way.  But  on  his 
visit,  early  in  the  morning,  these  words  appeared  to  him  in  Divine  glory  for  a 
full  hour  ;  and  again  the  next  morning.  He  hastened  home,  read  the  book  dili- 
gently, and  became  a  most  loving  receiver  of  its  doctrines. 

14 


2IO  OPENING  OF  SPIRITUAL  SIGHT. 

will,  in  place  of  that  of  the  mother  which  He  put  away ;  and 
thereby  became  one  with  the  Father,  or  the  Father  brought 
forth  to  view  in  the  Son,  to  whom  was  all  power  in  heaven 
and  in  earth.  Correlatively,  without  this  understanding,  in 
substance,  real  regeneration  was  not  possible.  Except  by  fol- 
lowing our  Lord  in  the  regeneration,  we  cannot  be  regen- 
erated ;  except  by  perceiving  that  He  laid  down  His  own 
maternal  human  will,  in  order  to  receive  in  its  place  the  pa- 
ternal Divine  will,  we  cannot  embrace  His  help  for  laying 
down  our  own  will,  the  will  of  the  flesh,  to  receive  from  Him 
in  its  place  His  Divine  will ;  and  without  this  help  we  can 
do  nothing. 

It  is  not  within  our  knowledge  how  many  or  how  few  in 
the  Christian  world  have  individually  gained  an  appreciation 
of  this  help  and  embraced  it,  and  followed  their  Lord  in  the 
regeneration.  No  doubt  they  have  been  many.  But  this  we 
know,  that  their  numbers  have  not  been  so  great  as  to  char- 
acterize the  doctrine  of  the  Church.  From  the  first  declar- 
ations by  Council  down  to  the  latest  creed  of  the  day,  no 
such  doctrine  has  been  taught.  Even  Peter  himself  departed 
so  far  from  the  simplicity  of  expression  of  his  Master,  as  to 
give  countenance  to  those  who  taught  that  they  who  were  to 
be  saved  were  elected  by  the  foreknowledge  of  the  Father, 
for  sanctification  and  justification  by  faith  in  their  Lord  Jesus, 
in  strange  contrast  to  the  simple  teaching  of  James, — "  Sub- 
mit yourselves  to  God.  Resist  the  devil,  and  he  will  flee  from 
you.  Draw  nigh  to  God,  and  He  will  draw  nigh  to  you." 
In  no  creed  is  the  simple  Gospel  truth  stated,  that  there  is 
One  God  made  known  to  us  in  the  Son,  in  whom  the  will 
of  the  Father  is  the  soul,  His  human  presence  is  the  body, 
and  the  Holy  Spirit  is  His  quickening  influence  into  men ; 
and  that  our  salvation  depends  on  making  His  regeneration 
our  own,  by  overcoming  our  natural  will  and  accepting  His, 
as  He  overcame  the  human  will  and  brought  the  Divine 
down  into  its  place.  The  early  departures  from  this  sim- 
plicity seem  to  have  originated  in  efforts  to  display  human 


SIMPLE  FAITH   OF   THE  GOSPEL.  211 

wisdom,  and  to  have  been  confirmed  by  ambition  for  do- 
minion and  by  ill-will  in  place  of  charity  for  those  who  did 
not  accept  it.  Instead  of  "the  wisdom  that  is  from  above" 
and  "is  first  pure,  then  peaceable,  gentle,  easy  to  be  en- 
treated, full  of  mercy  and  good  fruits,"  there  came  with 
"bitter  envying  and  strife  "in  their  hearts  a  "wisdom"  that 
"descendeth  not  from  above,  but  is  earthy,  sensual,  devilish." 
(James  iii.  14-17.)  In  particular,  the  fiction  of  attributing 
one  character  to  the  Father  and  another  to  the  Son  destroyed 
all  simplicity  and  charity  of  faith,  making  two  distinct  per- 
sons, therefore  two  distinct  Divine  Beings  of  the  One  God, 
and  introduced  the  "partiality  and  hypocrisy"  attributed  by 
James  to  the  wisdom  that  "descendeth  not  from  above." 
When  men  were  persuaded  that  God  had  elected  some  of 
them,  and  not  others,  or  that  He  had  delegated  the  right  of 
election  to  the  Pope  and  his  clergy,  hypocrisy  took  the  place 
of  repentance,  and  earthly  gifts  or  professions  of  faith  were 
laid  upon  the  altar  in  place  of  the  true  fruits  of  faith,  the 
works  of  mercy  and  love. 

What  now  is  needed  in  order  to  restore  the  simple  faith  of 
the  Gospel,  and  to  establish  it  on  a  sure  foundation?  First 
and  foremost  we  need  the  desire  for  regeneration,  for  drawing 
near  to  our  Lord  and  receiving  new  life  from  Him,  to  which 
is  given  the  light  that  shows  the  way.  This  alone  is  sufficient 
for  those  who  can  accept  a  simple  faith  which  accords  with 
their  love,  without  being  anxious  to  understand  its  means. 
But  for  the  help  of  those  who  want  rational  confirmation  of 
the  faith  that  is  in  them,  there  is  need  of  an  understanding 
of  the  manner  in  which  the  higher  degree  may  reside  in  the 
lower,  and  the  lower,  by  inspiration  of  the  higher,  voluntarily 
accept  its  life  for  its  own  and  act  therefrom,  and  thus  become 
its  face,  its  presence,  itself  in  lower  place  and  form, —  as  the 
Divine-human  presents  the  Divine,  and  the  natural  man  the 
spiritual,  on  accepting  the  higher  life  for  their  own.  Other 
supporting  knowledge  is  required,  but  this  is  the  fundamental, 
central  truth  of  which  there  has  been  the  greatest  need.  When 


212  OPENING  OF  SPIRITUAL  SIGHT. 

this  is  apprehended,  there  is  no  difficulty  in  understanding  how 
our  Lord,  in  the  human  form  and  nature,  by  the  inspiration 
of  the  Divine  Love,  rejected  every  temptation  of  the  maternal 
human,  and  accepted  the  Divine  in  its  place,  until  there  was 
no  more  anything  left  from  the  mother,  but  all  was  from  the 
Divine,  Divine-human,  one  with  the  Father,  with  no  thought, 
no  desire  but  His,  and  was  Himself  made  manifest  to  men. 
At  the  same  time  we  understand  how,  in  overcoming  the  ten- 
dency of  the  human  nature  to  sin,  He  gained  the  means  of 
being  forever  present  with  us  in  full  power  to  overcome  our 
tendency,  provided  we  accept  His  aid;  and  that  thus  He 
saves  all  who  will  accept  His  salvation,  who  will  from  Him 
resist  the  Devil  and  their  own  self-will,  and  obey  His  com- 
man>ds ;  for  therein  they  suffer  Him  to  put  away  their  evil 
will  and  accept  His  will,  first  in  their  interior,  spiritual  mind, 
and  at  last  in  the  external,  natural  mind,  being  born  again 
of  both  water  and  of  the  Spirit. 

Swedenborg,  in  his  investigation  of  the  constitution  of 
matter,  was  early  struck  with  the  necessity  of  recognizing  one 
degree  within  another.  In  his  Principia  he  asserted  that 
there  are  three  atmospheres  proceeding  from  the  sun, —  one 
more  subtile  and  within  another,  and  the  medium  of  a  more 
subtile  force.1  Later,  in  the  study  of  the  human  body,  with  a 
view  to  learning  the  seat  and  the  operation  of  the  soul,  he 
found  himself  more  and  more  impressed  with  the  imma- 
nence of  one  degree  of  substance  and  action  within  another, 
until,  some  years  before  his  illumination,  before  the  spiritual 
world  was  open  to  him  or  he  thought  of  studying  theology,  he 
wrote,  as  we  have  seen,  on  the  doctrine  of  discrete  degrees 
and  on  the  correspondence  of  one  degree  with  another.  He 
now  saw  that  the  spirit  was  of  a  degree  distinct  from  and  within 
that  of  the  body,  with  a  perfect  correspondence  between  one 
and  the  other ;  and  he  was  persuaded  that  this  correspond- 
ence was  the  hieroglyphic  key  to  the  inward  meaning  of  the 

1  The  physicists  of  the  present  day  have  not  yet  made  out  the  three,  but 
they  find  a  certainty  of  two,  with  at  least  a  possibility  of  a  third. 


INNER  SENSE   OF   SCRIPTURE.  213 

Scriptures.  To  the  unfolding  of  this  he  cast  a  longing  eye. 
But  before  this  was  given  him  to  do,  he  had  to  learn  by  expe- 
rience the  discrete  degrees  in  the  mind,  the  spiritual  discretely 
within  and  above  the  natural,  the  one  living  voluntarily  from 
the  Lord,  the  other  from  and  for  itself.1  This  he  learned, 
when  ready,  by  being  lifted  nearer  to  the  Lord  and  being 
shown  in  His  light  the  sinfulness  of  the  natural  will,  by  which 
he  was  led  to  pray  and  strive  with  all  his  might  for  deliver- 
ance, until  at  last  he  had  the  happiness  of  feeling,  from  the 
Divine  Presence  in  the  spiritual  mind,  that  he  no  longer  de- 
sired to  live  from  His  own  will,  but  only  from  the  Lord's. 
In  the  outer  mind,  connected  with  the  body,  there  was  still 
something  of  sadness ;  but  within  there  was  joy  and  peace. 
Thus  then  Swedenborg  was  trained,  both  by  theory  and  by 
experience,  to  appreciate  and  unfold  the  Gospel  doctrine  of 
the  incarnation  and  redemption. 

The  Scriptures  are  the  Word  of  God.  This  Word  is  clothed 
in  human  ideas  and  human  language,  just  as,  for  personal 
manifestation,  God  clothed  Himself  in  human  nature  and  a 
human  body.  In  no  other  way  could  man  hear  or  see  Him. 
Both  the  verbal  and  the  personal  revelations  are  for  man's 
eternal  salvation.  Their  use  to  him  does  not  end  with  this 
world,  but  endures  to  eternity ;  for  Divinity  Itself  is  hardly 
less  incomprehensible  and  invisible  to  our  spirit  than  to  our 
body ;  for  the  one  It  needs  a  human  clothing  as  much  as 
for  the  other.  This  needs  to  be  learned,  for  it  has  not  been 
understood ;  but  it  is  evident  to  any  one  who  rightly  consid- 
ers how  incomprehensible  Infinity  must  be  to  finite  humanity 
in  all  conditions.  In  heaven,  as  well  as  on  earth,  the  Divine 
Presence  is  in  the  Holy  Word  and  in  the  now  Divine  Human- 
ity. The  Word  of  God  must  be  full  of  Divine  and  angelic 

1  In  his  theological  works  we  find  Swedenborg  constantly  referring  to  man's 
proprium.  No  English  word  is  adequate  to  express  his  meaning,  which  is, 
imperfectly  stated,  man's  permitted  proprietorship  and  field  of  free  action,  with- 
in and  about  himself,  in  which  is  his  power  of  reaction  towards  the  Divine  ;  in 
short,  the  very  ground  of  his  free-will.  This,  originally  with  Swedenborg  a 
philosophic  discovery,  is  the  groundwork  of  his  spiritual  philosophy. 


214  OPENING  OF   SPIRITUAL  SIGHT. 

meaning,  within  the  letter,  as  the  Humanity  of  our  Lord  was 
full  of  the  Divinity ;  and  it  is  the  ladder  by  which  man  may 
climb  up  into  heaven,  by  which  his  mind  may  be  opened 
upward  through  successive  degrees  into  the  thoughts  of  the 
angels  with  whom  his  home  is  prepared.  Such  preparation 
and  such  association  is  the  use  and  the  happiness  of  this 
world,  too  long  foregone,  but  to  be  bestowed  in  the  Holy 
City  that  is  to  descend  from  God  out  of  heaven.  More  pre- 
cisely, the  understanding  of  the  Word  which  the  angels  have, 
in  which  they  live  and  move  and  have  their  being,  is  itself  the 
Holy  City  to  come  down  out  of  heaven,  to  be  the  tabernacle 
of  God  with  men;  and  this  descent  of  the  Holy  City  is 
again  the  coming  of  the  Lord,  to  the  understanding  of  men, 
in  the  clouds  of  heaven,  the  literal  sense,  with  power  and 
great  glory. 

By  what  means  shall  the  descent  be  made  ?  No  new  Word 
is  to  be  given.  That  which  reaches  from  the  beginning  of 
the  world  to  the  millennium,  and  was  fulfilled  in  the  personal 
manifestation  of  the  Divinity,  is  all  we  can  need.  But  we  are 
to  be  taught  to  understand  this  as  angels  understand  it.  How 
shall  we  be  taught  ?  Shall  we  imagine  angels  coming  down 
upon  earth  to  teach  us  ?  How  shall  we  see  and  hear  them  ? 
It  cannot  be  done  with  the  eyes  and  ears  of  the  body.  These 
cannot  apprehend  spirit.  Nor  is  it  conceivable  that  angels, 
like  the  Lord  Himself,  should  be  incarnated  for  the  purpose. 
There  is  a  far  simpler  way  :  though  angels  have  not  a  material 
form,  men  have  within  their  material  form  a  spirit  with  its 
spiritual  form  and  senses,  so  enwrapped  as  to  be  unseen  and 
almost  unknown.  For  man,  then,  to  be  taught  by  angels, 
nothing  is  necessary  but  that  a  separation  should  be  made 
between  his  bodily  senses  and  those  of  the  spirit,  and  that  the 
latter  should  be  opened  to  their  proper  use.  That  this  has 
been  given  many  times  of  yore,  we  know  from  the  Bible  and 
from  history.  The  question  remains  whether,  for  the  descent 
of  the  Holy  City,  this  favor  should  be  granted  to  the  many,  or 
to  but  one  in  their  behalf.  It  may  be  well,  before  forming  an 


FIRST   NOTION  ABOUT  SPIRITS.  215 

opinion  on  this  question,  to  read  attentively  the  unfoldings  of 
the  Word  made  through  Swedenborg,  and  to  learn  the  wisdom 
necessary,  and  the  Divine  guidance,  in  order  that  the  angelic 
meaning  may  reach  us  in  its  integrity.  We  may  then  con- 
clude that,  although  in  Swedenborg's  case  no  inexplicable 
miracle  was  given,  and  the  means  used  for  his  enlightenment 
were  no  other  than  might  be  used  at  any  time  for  the  enlight- 
enment of  others,  it  was,  as  he  says,  of  Divine  Providence, 
that  he  was  specially  prepared  for  the  work  and  protected  in 
its  performance,  in  order  that  the  foundations  of  the  City 
might  be  deeply,  securely  laid,  and  that  our  introduction  into 
it  may  be  made  sure.  And  let  it  not  be  forgotten  that,  ac- 
cording to  Swedenborg,  the  right  understanding  of  the  Word, 
the  presence  in  it  of  the  Lord  Himself,  can  be  given  by  Him 
alone,  by  the  light  of  His  Holy  Spirit,  the  Spirit  of  Truth. 
"  No  man  in  heaven,  nor  in  earth,  neither  under  the  earth,  was 
able  to  open  the  Book ;"  but  only  "the  Lion  of  the  tribe  of 
Judah,  the  Root  of  David." 

How  slowly,  step  by  step,  Swedenborg  came  to  a  full  com- 
prehension of  the  conditions  of  the  other  world  is  evident  in 
his  manner  of  speaking  of  the  forms  of  spirits.  When  he  first 
saw  one,  he  called  him  "  a  man."  This,  as  we  have  seen,  was 
in  April,  1745.  In  December  he  writes, — 

"  Spirits  do  not  perceive  otherwise  than  that  they  are  in 
human  shape,  thus  in  a  body  with  skin,  bones,  and  blood, 
when  yet  it  was  shown  them  that  they  cannot  retain  those 
things  which  are  of  no  use.  .  .  .  When  they  hear  this  they 
perceive  indeed  that  they  have  no  use  for  them,  but  still  that 
they  retain  the  shape.  .  .  .  But  what  their  proper  form  is, 
is  indeed  unknown ;  and  yet  from  the  least  organs  of  the 
brain,  where  are  the  beginnings  of  the  form  of  the  body,  it 
may  be  in  some  degree  concluded  that  the  forms  are  not  dis- 
similar from  those ;  and  that  still  they  can  be  restored  into  a 
likeness  of  the  human  form  as  often  as  they  direct  their  mind 
to  it  by  thoughts."  (S.  D.  355.) 


2l6  OPENING  OF  SPIRITUAL  SIGHT. 

The  satne  idea  of  spirits,  as  not  having  the  human  form 
except  by  fantasy,  or  fiction  of  thought,  appears  frequently, 
together  with  a  similar  notion  in  regard  to  their  surround- 
ings, their  garments,  animals,  etc.  In  October,  1748,  he 
writes  again, — 

"  I  have  spoken  concerning  the  form  which  spirits  have, 
because  they  do  not  know  in  what  form  they  are  other  than 
the  human,  and  said  that  the  inmosts  of  the  spirit  aspire  to  a 
form  like  the  human  body,  .  .  .  but  still  that  it  is  in  a  much 
more  perfect  form  applicable  and  fitting  to  heavenly  life. 
.  .  .  But  it  is  manifest  that  they  are  not  bodies,  because 
bodies  are  like  the  worm  forms,  and  are  indeed  food  for 
worms.  .  .  .  Wherefore  forms  of  spirits  are  much  more  per- 
fect, and  that  they  are  represented  as  human  forms  is  for  a 
cause  concerning  which  above  ;  but  what  the  forms  of  spirits 
are,  for  various  causes  it  has  not  been  given  me  to  know." 
(S.  D.  3472.) 

This  idea  of  the  form  of  the  soul,  as  something  which, 
though  the  cause  of  the  form  of  the  body,  was  distinct  from 
it  and  superior,  as  that  of  the  butterfly  to  that  of  the  worm, 
was  Swedenborg's  old  philosophic  idea,  as  expressed  in  his 
treatise  about  the  soul.  At  that  time  he  had  penetrated  so 
far  as  to  regard  the  outer  coverings  of  the  soul,  and  even  the 
rational  mind,  as  of  inner  material  substance,  which  would  be 
cast  off,  not  at  once,  but  gradually,  after  death.  The  soul 
would  then  be  pure  intelligence,  without  a  body,  of  which  it 
would  have  no  need,  yet  having  an  ethereal  form  of  its  own, 
and  capable  of  taking  the  human  form  upon  itself  on  occa- 
sion. And  now  for  three  years  and  a  half  he  had  been  in  the 
habit  of  seeing  spirits,  sometimes  every  day,  and  had  not 
yet  learned  what  he  afterwards  constantly  taught,  that  the 
bodies  in  which  he  saw  them  were  real,  substantial,  human 
bodies,  not  indeed  of  material,  but  of  spiritual  substance,  the 
inmost  of  the  material.  He  had  not  yet  got  rid  of  his  old 
idea  of  spirits  as  ghosts,  either  with  no  substantial  form  at  all, 
or  with  a  form  of  an  unknown  higher  type.  But  though  at 


LATER   NOTIONS   ABOUT  SPIRITS. 


217 


this  time  he  was  already  well  advanced  in  writing  the  Arcana 
Cazlestia,  few  traces  of  this  imperfect  apprehension  of  spirits 
are  observable  in  that  work.  In  one  place,  however,  we  find 
him  saying, — 

"  The  sound  of  the  gnashing  of  teeth  was  heard  [in  the 
world  of  spirits]  as  manifestly  as  that  of  a  man,  which  is 
strange,  since  they  have  not  teeth."  (A.  C.  820,  compare 

5387.) 

And  again  in  sundry  places  in  the  "Diary"  and  in  the 
"Arcana"1  he  speaks  of  spirits  and  angels  as  having  no 
need  for  food,  except  for  their  minds,  and  as  having  all  the 
senses  which  men  have  except  that  of  taste,  inferring  this 
exception,  probably,  from  his  preconceived  idea;  whereas 
later  he  writes, — 

"They  eat  and  drink  there  as  in  the  natural  world,  but  all 
the  food  is  from  a  spiritual  origin ;  wherefore  it  is  not  pre- 
pared, but  is  daily  given.  .  .  .  Because  the  food  is  from  a 
spiritual  origin,  and  thus  in  itself  spiritual,  and  because  spirits 
and  angels  are  men,  and  endowed  with  a  spiritual  body, 
therefore  such  spiritual  nourishment  serves  them  :  a  spiritual 
being  is  thus  nourished  spiritually,  and  a  material  man  ma- 
terially." (S.  D.  6088.)  "Good  spirits  and  angels  have  teeth 
equally  as  men."  (A.  E.  556.)  "They  have  similar  taste  and 
also  smell."  (S.  D.  vii.  sec.  2,  n.  3^-)2 

The  same  slowness  to  apprehend  the  realities  of  the  other 
world  shows  itself  in  the  early  remark  that  "  Place,  change  of 
place,  and  distance  in  the  other  life  are  fallacies."  (A.C.  1380.) 
Changes  of  place  in  the  other  world  "  are  only  apparent,  and 
are  nothing  but  changes  of  state,  whilst  the  body  remains  in 
the  same  place."  (A.  C.  1273.)  While  later  he  says, — 

"  Spirits  and  angels  ....  are  substantial  men,  and  live 
together  like  men  of  the  natural  world,  upon  spaces  and  in 
times  which  are  determined  according  to  the  states  of  their 
minds."  (T.C.R.  29.) 

1  See  Spiritual  Diary,  3567,  3998  ;  Arcana  Ccelestia,  1973. 

2  See  also  The  Apocalypse  Explained,  618  ;  Heaven  and  Hell,  461. 


2l8  OPENING  OF   SPIRITUAL  SIGHT. 

It  has  been  well  suggested 1  that  this  want  of  realization  of 
spiritual  facts  coincided  with  Swedenborg's  intellectual  pres- 
ence in  that  world,  with  the  senses  of  seeing  and  hearing 
therewith  connected ;  while  as  to  the  voluntary  part  of  his 
mind,  with  which  are  connected  the  realizing  senses  of  taste 
and  touch,  he  remained  in  this  world.  Later,  and  then  only 
occasionally,  it  was  permitted  him  to  be  almost  wholly  with- 
drawn from  the  body,  when  all  spiritual  things  became  real 
to  him.  Of  this  state  he  says,  — 

"  The  man  is  led  into  a  certain  state  which  is  intermediate 
between  sleep  and  waking,  and  when  he  is  in  this  state  he 
cannot  know  otherwise  than  that  he  is  altogether  awake  ;  all 
his  senses  are  as  wakeful  as  in  the  fullest  wakefulness  of  the 
body,  as  well  sight  as  hearing,  and,  what  is  wonderful,  the 
touch,  which  then  is  more  exquisite  than  can  ever  be  given  in 
the  wakefulness  of  the  body.  In  this  state  also  spirits  and 
angels  have  been  seen  altogether  to  the  life,  also  heard,  and, 
what  is  wonderful,  touched ;  and  then  almost  nothing  of  the 
body  intervened.  It  is  this  state  of  which  it  is  said,  '  to  be 
withdrawn  from  the  body,  and  not  to  know  whether  one  is  in 
the  body  or  out  of  the  body.'  (2  Cor.  xii.  2.)  I  have  been 
let  into  this  state  only  three  or  four  times,  that  I  might  only 
know  what  it  is,  and  at  the  same  time  that  spirits  and  angels 
enjoy  every  sense,  and  also  man  when  he  is  withdrawn  from 
the  body."  (H.  &  H.  440  :  in  1758.) 

Another  illustration  of  the  gradual  growth  of  Swedenborg's 
understanding  of  spiritual  things  is  found  in  the  manner  of  his 
speaking  of  evil  spirits  and  of  the  hells.  In  the  Adversaria 
he  says  little  about  the  hells,  but  frequently  refers  to  the  Devil 
and  his  crew.  So,  too,  in  the  early  portion  of  the  "  Diary" 
we  find  the  Devil  spoken  of  as  having  been  created  into  a 
state  of  perfection,  and  as  having  fallen  thence  and  being  now 
kept  in  chains  and  only  his  crew  let  out.  (S.  D.  202  :  Sept. 
23,  1747.)  A  year  later,  however,  Swedenborg  refers  to  what 

1  New  Jerusalem  Magazine,  July,  1881. 


THE  LOT  OF  EVIL  SPIRITS. 

he  had  written  of  this  kind  as  being  so  written  in  accordance 
with  the  belief  of  the  whole  Christian  world  (S.  D.  3217); 
and  perhaps  this  mention  in  n.  202  is  the  last  of  its  kind. 

But  the  period  of  the  "Diary"  is  the  decade  previous  to 
the  Judgment ;  and  the  hells  were  open,  their  inmates  in  a 
measure  unloosed.  To  Swedenborg's  eyes  "the  angels  or 
spirits  of  God  Messiah  were  very  few  in  comparison  with 
those  of  a  perverse  disposition"  (Adv.  part  iv.  p.  211);  and 
there  were  vast  numbers  of  spirits  who,  infested  with  the  evil, 
were  either  let  down  among  them,  as  into  their  hells,  or  kept 
in  what  Swedenborg  calls  the  lower  earth,  undergoing  vasta- 
tion  for  their  purification  from  evils,  in  preparation  for  ad- 
mission among  the  good.  During  these  years  Swedenborg 
visited  them,  heard  their  complaints,  was  permitted  to  com- 
fort them,  and  saw  troops  of  them  set  free  and  raised  up, 
under  the  care  of  angels,  among  the  good.  At  this  time  he 
was  most  deeply  impressed  with  two  things  :  first,  the  sinful- 
ness  of  the  human  heart,  on  account  of  which,  he  still  says  in 
the  old  language,  all  men  are  condemned  to  eternal  punish- 
ment (S.  D.  2583)  ;  and,  second,  the  infinite  loving  mercy 
of  the  Lord,  which  would  save  all.  From  this,  and  from  what 
he  sees  going  on,  he  insists  stoutly,  not  only  to  himself  but  to 
the  spirits  of  Jupiter  (3489)  and  even  to  the  angels  of  heaven 
(2826),  that  the  Lord  permits  no  punishment  except  as 
necessary  means  of  reformation,  and  that  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  punishment  to  eternity.1 

There  are  many  indications  that  at  this  time,  though  he 
knew  some  had  remained  in  their  hells  for  ten  or  even  twenty 
centuries,  Swedenborg  was  persuaded  that  all  would  eventually 
be  stripped  of  their  desire  to  do  evil,  and  would,  with  what 
little  life  remained,  be  taken  up  among  the  good,  to  perform 
such  uses  as  are  performed  by  almost  lifeless  bone.2  Not 
only  in  the  "Diary,"  but  likewise  in  the  first  volume  of  the 

1  Spiritrtal  Diary,  1039,  1074,  3528  end. 

2  See  Spiritual  Diary,  286,  1377,  1497,  2709,  2793,  2803,  3041,  3910,3912, 
39J3>  3944,  4°38>  4i",  4328>  4329- 


22O  OPENING  OF  SPIRITUAL  SIGHT. 

"Arcana,"  which  was  written  in  the  same  year,  1748,  we  find 
these  indications.  In  n.  699  he  speaks  of  comforting  those 
in  hell  and  the  lower  earth.  From  n.  827  to  n.  831,  and  in 
n.  955,  he  describes  the  punishments  of  most  abominable 
spirits,  of  several  kinds,  as  lasting  for  hundreds  of  years,  till 
they  have  little  life  left,  or  "  conceive  shame,  terror,  and  horror 
for  such  practices  "  as  they  had  been  accustomed  to.  In  en- 
tire harmony  with  this  view  is  the  common  reading  of  n.  967 
of  the  "Arcana"  :  "When  the  wicked  are  punished,  there  are 
always  angels  present  to  regulate  the  punishment,  and  to  alle- 
viate the  pains  of  the  sufferers  as  much  as  may  be ;  but  they 
cannot  remove  them  entirely,  because  such  is  the  equilibrium 
of  all  things  in  another  life,  that  evil  punishes  itself ;  and  un- 
less it  were  removed  by  punishments,  the  evil  spirits  must 
needs  be  kept  in  some  hell  to  eternity,  [as]  otherwise  they 
would  infest  the  societies  of  the  good,  and  do  violence  to  the 
order  appointed  by  the  Lord,  on  which  the  safety  of  the 
universe  depends." 

This  agrees  with  passages  already  cited  from  the  "  Diary," 
some  of  which  are  referred  to  in  the  author's  Index,  as  fol- 
lows :  "  Man  is  such  that  he  has  been  condemned  to  hell  to 
eternity ;  but  of  the  mercy  of  the  Lord,  after  punishments 
and  vastations,  he  is  taken  out  thence,"  n.  2583.  "  There 
was  talk  about  hell,  some  thinking  that  those  there  will  remain 
to  eternity ;  but  [it  was  shown]  that,  since  there  is  no  pun- 
ishment except  for  an  end,  and  the  Lord,  because  Wisdom 
Itself,  is  the  end,  therefore  nothing  happens  except  for  the 
end  of  good :  also  that  man  is  condemned  to  hell,  because 
he  is  nothing  but  evil;  but  the  Lord  liberates  him,"  n.  2823 
to  2827,  and  2831,  2832. 

With  these  various  indications  of  Swedenborg's  belief,  in 
1 748,  that  all  would  eventually  be  brought  out  of  hell,  we 
know  of  nothing  that  distinctly  indicates  a  contrary  belief  at 
that  time.  The  references  in  the  "Arcana"  (311,  562,  581) 
to  the  wicked  before  the  flood,  as  still  shut  away  in  a  hell  by 
themselves,  are  not  decisive,  since  he  plainly  understands 


THE  LOT  OF  EVIL  SPIRITS.  221 

many  centuries  to  be  necessary  for  reformation  in  some  cases. 
But  we  soon  have  signs  of  a  modification  of  belief.  After 
a  year's  experience  with  an  exceedingly  treacherous  class  of 
spirits,  whom  he  calls  sirens,  in  the  latter  part  of  1 749  he 
speaks  of  them  with  no  hope  of  their  possible  amendment. 
"  The  infernal  ones,  male  and  female,  who  receive  nothing  of 
amendment  by  punishments,  are  those  who  are  borne  towards 
hell.  The  most  profane  sirens,  with  the  rest,  were  punished 
many  times  severely,  so  severely  as  can  hardly  be  described 
for  the  various  tortures,  but  yet  they  were  afterwards  the 
same,  and  then  worse  ;  such  are  they  who  are  borne  to  hell 
and  fall  in  thither  when  filled  with  evils."  There,  he  goes  on 
to  say,  they  suffer  punishment  and  fear  it,  being  punished  by 
their  like ;  whereas  in  the  world  of  spirits  they  had  con- 
trived to  evade  it.  "But  those  who  are  punished  in  the 
world  of  spirits,  and  receive  amendment,  are  they  who  be- 
come better."  (S.  D.  4511-13.) 

About  the  same  time  he  writes  of  the  lot  of  the  evil  spirits 
that,  after  being  suffered  to  practise  their  evil  arts  in  the  world 
of  spirits  for  some  years,  "  they  concentrate  their  evils  and 
become  nothing  but  the  evils  of  their  kind,  and  what  is  good 
is  then  taken  away  from  them,  so  that  at  length  their  wicked- 
ness is  consummated,"  when  they  plunge  into  hell  where  are 
their  like,  and  have  no  longing  to  rise  into  the  world  of 
spirits,  for  fear  of  punishment,  but  recede  into  their  hells. 
There,  after  some  centuries  of  mutual  torment,  their  cor- 
poreal delights  may  become  somewhat  deadened,  and  they 
are  then  at  times  taken  up  into  the  world  of  spirits  to  serve 
for  the  vilest  uses,  with  scanty  life,  and  with  scarcely  any 
delight.  "  Such  is  the  lot  of  the  evil."  (S.  D.  4471.) 

At  length,  a  few  years  later,  we  have  in  the  "Arcana"  the 
emphatic  statement,  with  reason  given,  that — "They  endure 
evils  continually  more  severe,  and  this  until  they  dare  not 
harm  any  one ;  and  afterwards  they  remain  in  hell  forever. 
They  cannot  be  released,  because  the  will  to  do  good  to  any 
one  cannot  be  given  them ;  only  to  refrain  from  doing  evil  to 


222  OPENING  OF  SPIRITUAL  SIGHT. 

any  one  from  fear  of  punishment  can  be  given,  the  desire 
always  remaining."  (A.  C.  7541.)  From  this  statement  in 
all  his  subsequent  writings,  Swedenborg  never  departs.  That 
he  came  to  it  gradually  seems  certain.  But  the  difference  be- 
tween it  and  the  earlier  view  is  not  so  great  as  might  at  first 
appear.  The  essential  difference  is,  that,  while  from  the  first 
he  perceived  the  necessity  of  long  and  dire  punishment  to 
subdue  the  evil  desires  of  the  very  wicked,  ending  only  with 
almost  entire  loss  of  vitality,  he  at  first  supposed  that  by 
superadded  good  they  could  eventually  be  brought  into  asso- 
ciation with  good  spirits  and  become  a  part  of  the  "  Greatest 
Man"1  (S.  D.  3041)  ;  whereas,  with  further  experience,  he 
learned  that  the  evil  desires  could  never  be  entirely  removed, 
but  would  remain  the  spirit  of  the  little  life  left,  and  that 
they  could  have  no  part  among  the  good. 

Connected  with  this  first  uncertainty  as  to  the  final  dispo- 
sition of  the  wicked,  and  in  part  its  ground,  we  find  a  want 
of  clear  distinction  between  the  real  inward  state,  or  condi- 
tion, of  the  good  and  the  evil.  Regarding  man's  nature  as 
tending  always  to  evil,  from  which  he  is  withheld  by  the 
Lord  alone  ;  and  regarding  the  good  desires  of  the  angels  as 
superadded  to  them  from  the  Lord  (S.  D.  2803-5),  on  the 
withdrawal  of  which  they  would  lapse  into  the  condition  of 
evil  spirits, —  it  was  easy  to  think  that  saving  grace  would  be 
eventually  extended  to  all,  and  all  would  be  gathered  into  the 
one  fold.  Swedenborg  does  not  seem  at  this  time  to  have 
'realized,  so  fully  as  afterwards,  the  change  made  in  the  mental 
constitution  by  a  man's  consenting  acceptance  of  the  Divine 
grace ;  and  the  essential  difference  between  the  loving  use 
performed  by  the  good,  and  what  might  be  performed  under 
compulsion  by  the  evil ;  or  indeed  between  really  good  uses 
performed  by  the  good,  and  vile  or  necessary  evil  uses  per- 
formed under  permission  by  the  evil.  He  saw  rightly  from 
the  first  that  punishments  were  not  for  past  offences  and  to 

1  This  expression  is  used  by  Swedenborg  for  the  whole  heaven  taken  as  a 
one ;  which  is  organized,  he  says,  in  the  order  of  the  human  form. 


THE   LOT   OF   EVIL  SPIRITS. 


223 


eternity,  but  only  for  present  withholding  from  evil  and  while 
necessary  :  and  that  the  end  would  be  restraint  from  evil  and 
the  performance  of  use,  even  the  meanest,  to  the  rest  of 
mankind.  That  among  the  vast  multitudes  in  the  world  of 
spirits  undergoing  punishment  by  devils  for  the  Divine  pur- 
pose of  their  reformation,  there  were  some,  nay  many,  who 
would  never  suffer  themselves  to  be  reformed,  would  never 
give  up  their  desire  for  evil,  and  who  must  therefore  always 
remain  in  their  hells,  is  what  he  seems  not  at  first  to  have 
clearly  apprehended. 

In  this  hesitation,  or  reluctance,  perhaps  no  one  of  Sweden- 
borg's  readers  does  not  sympathize.  We  would  all  fain  be- 
lieve that  no  human  creature  can  fail  to  be  impressed  in  the 
end  into  his  Lord's  kingdom.  But  we  must  all  recognize  the 
freedom  of  choice  given  man  as  vital,  absolute,  and  eternal. 
The  manner  of  exercise  of  the  choice  is,  then,  simply  a  matter 
of  fact  and  experience,  in  which  Swedenborg  is  our  tutor ;  and 
our  own  desire  or  reason  can  hardly  gainsay  what  he  has  told 
us.  We  cannot  but  fear  that  the  tale  is  "ower  true."  We 
have,  however,  the  consolation  of  inferring  that  in  time  the 
condition  of  the  unfortunate  ones  ceases  to  be  that  of  pun- 
ishment and  suffering ;  that  their  life  becomes  comparatively 
harmless,  by  submission  to  restraint ;  and  that  if  its  delight 
is  reduced  to  almost  nothing,  it  is  all  the  world  to  them,  and 
what,  because  it  is  their  very  self,  they  would  not  exchange 
for  the  lot  of  any  other  beings.  Moreover,  we  have  Sweden- 
borg's  assurance  that  even  in  their  lowest  condition  they 
never  cease  to  be  an  object  of  pity  and  care  to  angels  and 
to  the  Lord  Himself. 

These  instances  of  Swedenborg's  gradual  development  of 
ideas  and  doctrine  are  not  exceptional ;  they  are  rather  the 
rule,  covering  nearly  the  whole  field  of  his  spiritual  instruc- 
tion. In  a  note  to  n.  43  of  his  little  treatise  on  the  Worship 
and  Love  of  God,  after  describing  the  instinctive  knowledge 
and  capacities  into  which  brute  animals  are  born,  and  con- 


224  OPENING   OF   SPIRITUAL  SIGHT. 

trasting  therewith  the  ignorance  and  helplessness  of  infant 
men,  he  says, — 

"  It  was  altogether  otherwise  in  our  first-begotten,  whose 
rational  or  intellectual  mind  was  not  to  be  instructed  and 
perfected  in  a  similar  manner,  or  from  the  bodily  senses,  but 
from  the  soul  itself,  while  the  sensories  of  the  body  only  ad- 
ministered and  were  subservient :  for  he  was  born  into  a  state 
of  the  greatest  integrity,  and  into  perfections  themselves." 

Again  in  a  note  to  n.  52,  after  describing  the  synthetical 
and  the  analytical  ways  of  learning,  he  says, — 

"  It  appears  that  the  intellectual  mind  of  Adam,  while  all 
things  were  excited  from  their  first  auspices  to  last,  was  in- 
structed by  the  synthetic  way,  from  the  soul  first,  and  after- 
wards from  its  senses ;  wherefore  now  he  is  said  to  have  met 
his  understanding,  or  the  intelligences  who  were  coming  to 
him.  The  case  is  otherwise  in  his  posterity,  in  whom  the 
rational  mind,  which  had  altogether  no  existence  in  infancy, 
is  first,  as  it  were,  to  be  constructed,  or  opened  from  the 
senses,  before  it  can  be  instructed ;  for  it  is  perfected  by  age, 
through  the  benefit  of  experience,  which  is  of  the  senses,  and 
afterwards  of  the  sciences,  conceived  and  brought  forth  from 
the  experience  of  the  senses." 

And  in  another  note  to  the  same  number, — 

"  That  our  first-begotten  was  able  to  know  what  is  good, 
or  goodnesses,  from  an  internal  sense,  is  sufficiently  evident 
from  the  formation  of  his  mind,  and  from  causes  which  follow 
in  their  series ;  for  the  minds  of  those  who  live  in  the  love  of 
the  Supreme  not  only  see,  but  also  feel  the  affections  of  its 
goodnesses,  and  consequently  have  their  understanding  clearly 
enlightened  by  truths ;  wherefore  from  a  sense  of  goodness 
the  knowledge  of  all  truths  flows  ;  ...  he  who  comprehends 
superior  goodnesses  by  an  inmost  sense  has  no  need  to  run 
over  that  spacious  plain  of  investigation,  or  to  make  his  way 
through  masses  of  truths,  because  he  is  in  the  knowledge  of 
goodness  itself,  or,  as  it  were,  at  the  goal,  from  whence  he 
can  widely  view  and  freely  contemplate  the  whole  field." 


GROWTH   OF   IDEAS.  22$ 

Three  or  four  years  later  in  the  Arcana  Ccelestia,  n.  1902, 
Swedenborg  wrote, — 

"  If  man  were  imbued  with  no  hereditary  evil,  then  the 
rational  would  be  born  immediately  from  the  marriage  of  the 
celestial  things  of  the  internal  man  with  its  spiritual  things, 
and  through  the  rational  would  be  born  the  scientific,  so  that 
man  would  have  with  him  all  the  rational  and  all  the  scientific 
immediately  on  coming  into  the  world." 

Sixteen  years  after  this  was  published  in  the  "Arcana,"  the 
following  more  guarded  statement  was  printed  in  The  Divine 
Providence,  n.  275  :  — 

"  The  love  into  which  man  was  created  is  the  love  of  the 
neighbor.  .  .  .  This  love  is  truly  human ;  for  in  it  there  is 
what  is  spiritual,  by  which  it  is  distinguished  from  natural 
love,  which  brute  animals  have.  If  man  were  born  into  that 
love,  he  would  not  be  born  into  the  thick-darkness  of  ignor- 
ance, as  every  man  now  is ;  but  into  some  light  of  science, 
and  thence  of  intelligence,  into  which  he  would  also  shortly 
come." 

And  in  his  crowning  work,  The  True  Christian  Religion, 
published  seven  years  after  The  Divine  Providence,  Sweden- 
borg gives  at  length  a  most  interesting  discussion  on  this 
subject,  in  an  assembly  in  the  other  world,  at  which  he  was 
invited  to  be  present.  The  topics  of  discussion  were  three  : 
First,  "  What  is  the  image  of  God,  and  what  the  likeness  of 
God,  into  which  man  was  created?"  Second,  "Why  is  not 
man  born  into  the  science  of  any  love,  when  yet  beasts  and 
birds,  noble  as  well  as  ignoble,  are  born  into  the  sciences  of 
all  their  loves?"  The  third,  about  the  tree  of  life,  does  not 
immediately 'concern  our  present  subject.  The  conclusion 
upon  the  first  question  was,  in  brief,  that  man  becomes  an 
image  of  God  according  as  he  receives  from  Him ;  and  that 
he  becomes  a  likeness  of  God  from  sensibly  perceiving  in 
himself  that  those  things  which  are  from  God  are  in  him  as 
his,  and  yet  that  so  much  of  this  likeness  becomes  an  image 
as  acknowledges  that  all  in  him  is  not  really  his  but  the 


226  OPENING  OF  SPIRITUAL  SIGHT. 

Lord's.  And  the  conclusion  on  the  second  question  was,  in 
full, — "  That  man  is  born  into  no  science,  in  order  that  he 
may  be  able  to  come  into  them  all,  and  advance  to  intelli- 
gence, and  through  this  to  wisdom ;  and  that  man  is  born 
into  no  love,  in  order  that  he  may  be  able  to  come  into  all, 
by  applications  of  the  sciences  from  intelligence,  and  into 
love  to  God  through  love  towards  the  neighbor,  and  thus  to 
be  conjoined  to  God,  and  by  that  means  to  become  a  man, 
and  to  live  to  eternity."  (T.  C.  R.  48.) 

The  successive  steps  by  which  Swedenborg's  mind  ad- 
vanced through  reason  and  intelligence  to  wisdom  are  here 
beautifully  shown.  In  the  exercise  of  his  reason  he  came  to 
see  the  vast  superiority  of  the  down-look,  from  the  high  point 
of  view  given  by  sympathy  with  the  Divine  ends.  His  whole 
treatise  on  the  Worship  and  Love  of  God  is  an  overflow  of 
joy  in  the  reception  and  exercise  of  something  of  this  faculty. 
To  this  is  due  its  exuberant  and  sportive  fancy.  Nothing  was 
more  natural  than  to  imagine  that  this  gift,  designed  for  man 
in  his  highest  estate,  was  given  to  him  at  his  first  birth,  when 
fresh  from  the  hands  of  his  Maker.  A  few  years  later,  when 
learning  in  the  history  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  the 
development  of  the  human  mind,  above  all,  of  the  Lord's 
own  human  mind,  though  he  saw  that  even  in  this  case  the 
present  order  of  development  through  the  rational  was  fol- 
lowed, it  was  still  clear  to  him  that  if  man  were  born  into 
love  to  the  Lord  and  the  neighbor,  into  that  for  which  he 
was  designed,  he  would  find  all  rational  and  scientific  knowl- 
edge at  his  feet.  Later,  in  The  Divine  Providence,  with  pos- » 
sibly  more  doubt  as  to  what  had  been  the  primal  fact,  he  still 
sees  that  if  man  were  born  into  this  love  he  would  come 
into  the  light  of  such  knowledge,  and  the  knowledge  itself 
would  soon  open  to  him.  Last  of  all,  in  his  crowning  work, 
at  the  same  time  that  he  teaches,  not  as  before,  that  the 
Father  acts  through  the  Son,  but  that,  as  the  body  from  the 
soul,  the  Son  acts  from  the  Father,  —  he  learns  that  to  be  in 
the  likeness  of  God  is  to  see  what  one  has  from  God  as  one's 


GROWTH   OF   IDEAS.  22/ 

own,  thus  to  act  as  it  were  from  one's  self,  at  the  same  time 
that  to  be  in  the  image  of  God  is  to  acknowledge  all  one 
has,  to  be  from  Him.  Coincidently  he  learns  that  the  way  in 
which  he  himself  has  been  led,  through  science  to  intelligence 
and  through  intelligence  to  wisdom,  as  also  through  love 
towards  the  neighbor  into  love  to  God,  —  the  way  which  he 
had  found  described  in  the  history  of  Isaac  as  that  in  which 
our  Lord  suffered  His  own  humanity  to  be  led, —  is  the  way 
which  He  has  designed  for  all  from  the  beginning ;  the  true 
and  only  way  in  which  man  can  receive  knowledge  after 
knowledge,  faculty  after  faculty,  as  his  own,  and  yet  learn  to 
acknowledge  them  as  from  God  alone, — in  fact,  come  into 
both  His  image  and  His  likeness. 

Swedenborg's  idea  was  right  from  the  first,  as  to  the  power 
of  vision  which  would  be  given  with  the  acceptance  of  the 
Divine  inflowing  spirit ;  nor  was  he  at  all  unmindful  of  the 
steps  necessary  for  him,  and  for  all  others  since  Adam,  to  be 
led  up  to  this  state.  What  he  did  not  seem  to  see  till  the 
last  was,  that  it  is  of  Divine  order  and  necessity,  in  the  very 
nature  of  man,  for  him  to  have  his  first  conscious  life  in  the 
neutral  ground  of  ultimates,  and  to  receive  higher  life  and 
light,  step  by  step,  as  he  acquires  power  to  recognize  its 
source,  at  the  same  time  that  he  feels  it  to  be  his  own. 

These  various  examples  of  the  gradual  growth  of  spiritual 
ideas  in  Swedenborg's  mind  we  have  adduced,  partly  for  their 
individual  interest,  but  specially  to  illustrate  the  fact  that  the 
revelation  given  through  him  is  a  rational  revelation,  never 
forced  upon  him,  but  opened  to  him  step  by  step,  as  his 
mind  was  enabled  to  comprehend  it  rationally.  This  is  of 
first  importance  to  be  understood,  both  that  the  revelation 
may  be  seen  in  its  right  place  in  history,  as  the  revelation 
given  to  man's  now  developed  reason,  and  that  its  claims' 
upon  us  may  be  recognized  as  addressed  always  to  our  rea- 
son. Swedenborg  himself,  while  eagerly  confessing  with  joy 
that  his  doctrine  is  not  his  own,  but  from  the  Lord,  often  ap- 
peals to  the  reason  of  his  readers,  begging  them  to  examine 


228  OPENING  OF  SPIRITUAL  SIGHT. 

for  themselves  and  see  whether  the  doctrine  be  not  true. 
This  is  indeed  the  very  essence  of  the  new  revelation, —  the 
rational  recognition  of  spiritual  truth,  by  the  aid  of  the  Spirit 
of  Truth,  with  acknowledgment  of  its  Divine  Source. 

One  day  there  appeared  to  Swedenborg  a  magnificent 
domed  temple,  with  windows  of  crystal  and  gate  of  pearl ; 
and  over  the  gate  was  written  Nunc  Licet.  On  consideration 
he  perceived  that  the  temple  represented  a  Church,  and  in- 
deed the  New  Church  that  is  to  be,  in  which  Now  it  is 
allowable  to  enter  intellectually  into  the  mysteries  of  faith. 

The  child  accepts  what  he  is  taught  in  innocence  and 
affection.  The  boy  learns  in  obedience  to  his  master.  The 
youth  reasons  for  himself,  and  asserts  his  own  conclusions  as 
the  only  standard  of  faith.  The  mature  mind  confesses  its 
ignorance,  humbles  itself  before  the  Divine  Teacher,  and 
gratefully  accepts  what  He,  with  His  Spirit,  illumines  before 
it  as  the  truth,  accordant  with  right  reason  and  with  heavenly 
love.  The  youthful  stage  of  the  Christian  Church  is  passing 
by.  The  stage  of  ripe  manhood  is  opening  before  us ;  but  it 
is  not  entered  without  trial  and  temptation,  —  trial  of  the 
heart  whether  it  will  submit  to  be  led  by  its  Lord,  and  temp- 
tation of  the  intellect  to  throw  off  all  allegiance,  to  assert  its 
own  supremacy,  and  to  disbelieve  all  but  its  own  independent 
vision.  The  trial  and  temptation  endured,  the  gates  open  of 
themselves,  and  Nunc  Licet. 


CHAPTER   X. 

OPENING   OF  THE   SCRIPTURES. 

As  in  his  apprehension  of  the  mysteries  of  the  other  world, 
so  in  his  comprehension  of  the  arcana  of  the  Word  of  God, 
we  find  Swedenborg's  progress  to  have  been  slow  and  grad- 
ual, in  orderly,  rational  development.  As  soon  as  he  learned 
that  this  was  the  work  designed  for  him,  he  left  unfinished  the 
essay  on  the  Worship  and  Love  of  God,  and  began  to  study 
Hebrew  and  the  Old  Testament,  using  both  the  original  and 
Schmidt's  Latin  version.  In  a  few  months  he  was  writing 
notes  in  explanation  of  Genesis  which  he  did  not  publish,1 
but  which  are  of  interest  as  showing  the  steps  by  which  he 
arrived  at  the  understanding  of  the  interior  sense  which  he 
afterwards  published  in  his  Arcana  Ccelestia. 

In  the  first  notes,  entitled  "The  History  of  the  Creation 
Handed  Down  by  Moses,"  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  is 
explained  from  beginning  to  end  in  only  the  sense  of  the 
letter,  as  referring  simply  to  the  creation  of  the  material 
world.  No  other  thought  appears  in  Swedenborg's  mind. 
In  the  second  chapter  he  begins  with  referring  to  his  little 
work  on  the  Worship  and  Love  of  God,  but  says  that  all 
human  speculations  are  unreliable,  except  so  far  as  they  coin- 
cide with  revelation ;  and  so  he  submits  the  statements  in 
this  little  treatise  to  the  test  of  what  he  is  now  learning  in 
these  first  chapters  of  Genesis.  He  is  surprised,  pleasantly  no 
doubt,  with  the  agreement  he  finds.  He  then  proceeds  with 
his  explication  in  the  same  way  as  in  the  first  chapter,  until, 

1  Published  by  Dr.  J.  F.  I.  Tafel,  under  the  title  of  Adversaria  in  Libras 
Veteris  Testamenti,  1842-54. 


230 


OPENING  OF   THE  SCRIPTURES. 


in  the  ninth  verse,  new  light  seems  to  break  upon  him.  In 
the  preceding  verse  he  doubts  whether  Adam  was  born  in  the 
Garden  of  Eden,  or  created  elsewhere  and  brought  into  it ; 
but  he  wisely  concludes  *that  belief  one  way  or  the  other  is 
not  an  article  of  salvation.  And  then,  in  unfolding  the  ninth 
verse,  without  preamble  he  declares  it  to  be  plain  enough 
that  the  earthly  paradise  represented  heavenly  paradise,  "  for 
there  is  nothing  given  on  earth  to  which  there  is  not  some- 
thing corresponding  in  heaven."  The  way  now  opens  before 
him,  and  he  goes  through  this  chapter  and  the  next,  finding 
spiritual  significance  in  almost  every  verse,  not  inconsistent 
with  what  he  afterwards  published,  though  less  clear  and 
more  hampered  by  the  letter.  At  the  end  of  the  third  chap- 
ter, however,  he  writes  and  underscores  the  words, —  "These 
things  have  been  premised.  But  let  us  search  the  Scriptures 
chiefly  with  this  intent,  that  we  may  investigate  the  kingdom 
of  God,  what  it  is  to  be,  and  the  many  things  which  pertain  to 
it.  The  Scriptures  not  here  and  there  but  everywhere  treat  of 
the  kingdom  of  God,  for  indeed  this  was  the  end  of  the  creation 
of  all  things,  as  well  of  heaven  as  of  earth."  In  pursuance 
of  this  intent  he  seems  now  to  have  filled  thirty-two  folio 
pages  with  Bible  -passages  under  the  following  heads :  — 
"i.  The  Messiah  about  to  come  into  the  world.  2.  The 
Messiah  who  is  about  to  come  a  second  time  to  restore  the 
Jews.  3.  The  Kingdom  of  God.  4.  Babylon."  To  these 
pages  he  gave  the  title,  The  Messiah  about  to  Come  into  the 
World  ;  and  the  Kingdom  of  God.1 

Then  he  goes  back  and  starts  again  with  the  first  chapter 
of  Genesis,  assured  that  it  inwardly  contains  the  plan  of  the 
redemption  of  man  by  the  Lord,  but  unable  to  advance  much 
beyond  the  interior  literal  sense  in  many  of  the  particulars. 
Even  when  he  comes  to  the  Flood  and  the  saving  of  Noah  in 
the  ark,  though  he  is  full  of  the  recognition  of  the  Lord's 
Divine  providence  for  the  human  race,  and  for  the  establish- 
ment of  His  Divine  kingdom,  his  ideas  still  remain  fixed  in 

1  Not  printed  in  the  Adversaria,  but  photo-lithographed  by  R.  L.  Tafel. 


IDEA  OF   THE  TRINITY.  231 

the  letter ;  he  thinks  only  of  a  flood  of  waters  and  of  a  single 
family  preserved  in  an  ark  of  wood.  The  phrases  of  the  old 
theology  in  which  he  had  been  trained  are  continually  crop- 
ping out,  as  when  he  says  that  the  posterity  of  Ham,  because 
they  took  possession  of  the  Holy  Land,  represented  the 
Devil,  who  invaded  heaven.  This  is  still  more  remarkable  in 
what  he  says  of  the  Supreme  Being.  He  refers  constantly  to 
the  three  persons  of  the  Trinity,  notwithstanding  his  having 
learned  by  spiritual  experience  that  all  prayer  should  be  ad- 
dressed to  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  God,  the  Father,  is  still 
to  him  the  impersonation  of  justice,  while  He  effects  all  crea- 
tion through  His  only-begotten  Son,  who  is  the  Logos,  or 
Sermo,  the  unwritten  Word.  And  at  times,  as  when  the  cove- 
nant is  made  with  Noah,  he  labors  to  show  that  it  was  made 
by  the  three  persons, — by  Jehovah,  the  Father ;  by  God,  the 
Son;  and  by  the  Holy  Spirit, — inasmuch  as  it  is  declared 
the  third  time. 

We  must,  however,  bear  in  mind  that,  by  his  own  state- 
ment (T.  C.  R.  16),  from  his  earliest  years  he  could  never 
admit  into  his  mind  the  idea  of  more  Gods  than  one,  but 
always  received  and  retained  the  idea  of  one  God  alone. 
Hence  we  must  suppose  that  the  tri-personal  idea  was  with 
him  but  an  external  one,  not  much  more  than  a  form  of 
speech,  a  distinction  of  office,  not  of  character.  In  The  Wor- 
ship and  Love  of  God  he  says  that  the  Father  begat  the  Son 
as  a  mediator,  by  whom  man  might  approach  Him, —  a  state- 
ment not  far  from  the  truth.  In  the  Adversaria  the  justice 
of  the  Father  is  loving,  not  vindictive,  justice,  and  the  love 
with  which  the  Son  pleads  for  mercy  for  men  is  inspired  by 
the  Father,  who  longs  to  grant  the  mercy.  Sometimes  the 
justice  itself  is  attributed  to  the  Son,  and  it  is  important  to 
observe  that  the  Lord  the  Messiah  was  continually  before 
him.  He  saw  Him  as  the  present  means  of  the  creation,  as 
the  predicted  conqueror  of  the  serpent,  as  represented  in  His 
death  by  Abel,  as  vainly  imitated  in  the  establishment  of  His 
Holy  City  by  the  Devil's  attempt  at  Babel,  and  as  the  very 


232  OPENING  OF   THE  SCRIPTURES. 

end  in  view  in  the  selection  and  care  of  Abraham.  In  the 
following  passage  it  will  be  seen  how  near  he  comes  to  what 
he  afterwards  saw  and  published  in  detail,  that  in  Abraham's 
life  throughout  was  represented  the  infancy  and  childhood 
of  our  Lord  on  earth  :  — 

"In  Abram,  as  in  a  mirror  in  which  a  type  and  image 
appear,  are  represented  the  effigies  of  things  which  are  to 
come,  both  of  this  world  and  of  heaven ;  but  the  Messiah 
and  His  kingdom  are  the  very  effigy  itself, —  the  rest  are  only 
types  which  come  in  succession.  Wherefore  not  even  the 
least  thing  occurs  in  the  life  of  this  parent  of  the  Israelites, 
Abram,  which  is  not  representative  or  typical  of  what  is  about 
to  come,  in  the  Jewish  community  first,  then  in  those  that 
are  to  follow,  even  to  the  last  times  when  the  thing  itself  in 
its  own  light  and  effigy  will  stand  forth  to  view."  (Adv.  164.) 

How  present  our  Lord  was  to  Swedenborg's  mind  appears 
further  from  his  perceiving  that  it  was  "the  Only-Begotten 
of  God,  the  Messiah,"  who  was  seen  by  Abram  :  — 

"  Therefore,  because  Abram  saw,  not  the  type,  but  the  very 
effigy  itself,  that  is,  the  King  Himself,  who  should  introduce 
his  posterity  and  the  nations  into  the  promised  land  and  into 
His  kingdom,  to  Him  he  built  an  altar.  He,  because  He  is 
the  image  of  His  Father,  is  here  as  in  the  following  passages 
called  also  Jehovah :  Therefore  he  built  an  altar  there  to 
Jehovah  who  appeared  to  him.  This  is  the  day  and  the 
coming  of  the  Messiah  which  Abram  saw  and  was  glad.  Nay, 
Abram,  when  first  the  land  was  promised  to  him  and  his 
posterity  by  the  Messiah  King  Himself,  is  led  away  to  the 
place  where  the  Messiah  should  be  born,  even  to  Bethlehem. 
.  .  .  Touched  and  moved  by  the  holiness  of  the  place,  the 
father  of  the  Israelites  fixed  his  abode  there  for  a  time,  built 
an  altar,  called  upon  God,  and  thus  celebrated  His  day  and 
His  coming."  (Adv.  part  i.  166,  167.) 

And  again,  with  appreciation  of  what  the  presence  of  the 
Lord  required,  he  says  of  Abram,  now  named  Abraham,  — 

"When,  therefore,  Abraham  had  seen  his  Messiah,  and 


THE   FULNESS   OF   THE   WORD   OF   GOD.  233 

indeed  now  in  the  human  form,  which  He  was  about  to  put 
on,  straightway  he  first  offered  Him  that  which  signifies  this 
human  nature  and  its  purification,  namely,  the  washing  of 
the  feet;  for  the  things  which  are  outmost,  or  with  which 
interior  things  are  clothed,  are  those  which  relate  to  nature, 
and  by  which  spiritual  things  are  enclosed.  Such  things  also 
circumcision  involves.  But  the  lowest  part  of  all  is  the  sole 
of  the  foot,  which  is  washed  for  the  sake  of  that  representa- 
tion ;  and  thus  with  men  that  is  purged  away  which  adheres 
to  nature,  as  was  also  afterwards  instituted  by  the  Messiah 
Himself.  Abraham  under  the  tree  begged  suppliantly  that 
this  might  be  done,  for  the  sake  of  the  memory  of  the  tree  of 
life  upon  which  his  posterity  were  to  be  engrafted  :  there- 
fore said  father  Abraham,  Let  a  little  water  be  accepted,  I  pray, 
and  wash  yourfeet,  and  rest  under  the  tree.  (Adv.  199.) 

A  little  later,  amazed  at  the  infinity  of  meaning  which  he 
begins  to  find  hidden  in  the  Word  of  God,  he  exclaims, — 

"  Believe  me,  O  readers,  for  I  speak  the  truth,  that  in  every 
word,  yea  in  every  jot  of  an  expression  that  comes  forth  from 
the  mouth  of  Jehovah  God,  there  are  most  hidden  things,  and 
so  all-embracing  as  to  contain  in  themselves  in  the  present 
an  infinite  series  from  eternity  to  eternity,  the  things  which 
are  and  the  things  which  are  to  come,  from  the  beginning  of 
heaven  and  earth  even  to  their  end.  For  whatever  Jehovah 
speaks  by  His  Word  and  Holy  Spirit,  is  He  Himself  therein ; 
thus  what  is  infinite,  that  is,  infinite  things  which  never  come 
forth  into  the  light  before  human  minds.  The  things  which 
are  revealed  are  only  a  very  few,  and  hardly  a  very  few.  Yet 
not  even  these  lie  open  except  when  the  Sun  rises,  that  is, 
Jehovah  God,  who  is  the  Sun  of  wisdom,  and  enlightens 
with  some  rays  of  His  own  light  minds  that  dwell  in  densest 
shadow." 

This  perception  that  every  syllable  of  the  Word  of  God 
contained  the  Divine  fulness,  was  one  of  the  keys  given  to 
Swedenborg  for  unlocking  its  mysteries.  To  this  were  added 
his  discovery  that  everything  in  the  Word  presented  something 


234  OPENING  OF   THE   SCRIPTURES. 

of  the  great  end  in  view  from  the  beginning, — the  judgment 
and  salvation  by  the  Lord  of  the  human  race ;  his  long- 
cherished  doctrine  that  every  outward  thing  is  the  repre- 
sentative and  correspondent  of  some  inward  thing ;  and  his 
consciousness  that  while  all  good  depends  on  love  to  the 
Lord  and  the  neighbor,  all  evil  depends  on  love  to  self  and 
the  world.  It  is  interesting  to  mark  the  steps  by  which,  with 
these  guides,  the  meaning  of  the  Word  opened  before  him, 
illustrated  continually  by  the  information  communicated  to 
him  by  the  spirits  and  angels  with  whom  his  studies  brought 
him  into  company. 

At  the  same  time  we  realize  with  what  peril  the  task  would 
have  been  undertaken  without  the  constant  guidance  of  the 
Holy  Spirit.  Swedenborg  himself  became  deeply  sensible  of 
this,  and  gives  frequent  warning  of  the  danger  of  trusting  to 
the  suggestions  of  spirits.  It  may  be  questioned  whether  it 
would  have  been  possible  for  him  to  be  sufficiently  on  his 
guard,  without  such  open  vision  as  he  had  of  the  company 
about  him.  While  the  explanation  of  the  Word  that  he  was 
to  learn  and  teach  was  the  spiritual  sense,  in  which  it  is  un- 
derstood in  the  other  world,  and  while  it  was  essential  for  his 
understanding  of  it  that  he  should  be  in  open  communica- 
tion with  spirits  and  angels,  it  was  no  less  important  that  he 
should  be  protected  from  the  persuasion  of  any,  and  that 
he  should  receive  the  truth  into  his  rational  understanding 
under  the  sole  guidance  of  the  Spirit  of  Truth. 

In  this,  as  in  everything  else  he  learned  and  taught,  he  was 
the  pioneer  for  us  all.  In  the  new  age  of  the  Church,  while 
we  are  to  enter  rationally  into  the  mysteries  of  faith  and  of 
Scripture,  and  while  we  are  to  realize  the  presence  and  in- 
fluence of  the  Holy  Spirit,  we  need  to  know  what  Sweden- 
borg learned  of  the  constant  influence  of  spirits  about  us,  of 
the  danger  of  trusting  to  them,  and  of  the  necessity  of  look- 
ing to  the  Law  and  to  the  Testimony  for  guidance  by  the 
Spirit  of  Truth. 

On  this  subject  the  Church  has  had  little  knowledge.    Men 


THE   DIVINE   CONTROL.  235 

have  recognized  but  two  spirits, —  that  of  the  Lord  and  that 
of  the  Evil  One.  Too  often  inspiration  with  some  apparent 
good  purpose  has  been  claimed  to  be  from  the  Lord,  when 
in  fact  there  was  within  it  vain-glory  and  fantasy.  Sweden- 
borg  himself  at  first,  as  we  have  already  seen,  knew  only  of 
"the  Spirit,"  meaning  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  the  Tempter.  He 
had  to  learn  that  between  the  two  are  infinite  grades  of 
angels  and  spirits,  whose  influence  may  partake  of  that  of 
both  at  the  same  time.  Even  the  angels,  he  says,  were 
tempters  of  the  Lord  in  His  human  nature,  from  the  imper- 
fection that  clung  to  them.  Spirits  and  angels  innumerable 
he  found  pressing  about  him,  as  about  all  men,  and  ready 
to  inspire  his  mind,  if  not  his  body,  with  their  own  peculiar 
thoughts  and  impulses.  They  would  even  impel  and  guide 
his  pen,  did  he  surrender  the  control  to  them. 

Now  shone  forth  to  him  the  power  and  the  goodness, 
the  wisdom  and  the  near  presence,  of  the  Lord  his  Saviour. 
Infinite  control  he  saw  to  be  in  the  Divine  hands,  by  reason 
that  all  life  and  power,  even  that  of  the  lowest  devil,  pro- 
ceeded from  the  Divine  Life  and  Power  alone, —  proceeded 
as  a  stream  from  its  fountain,  however  defiled  on  its  way ;  so 
that  the  instant  the  supply  should  be  cut  off,  that  instant 
angel,  spirit,  man,  or  devil  would  cease  to  be.  The  unerring 
wisdom  by  which  all  these  contending  forces  are  moderated 
and  counterbalanced  so  as  to  be  in  equilibrium  about  every 
sane  man,  in  order  that  his  freedom  may  be  preserved,  his 
character  and  powers  developed,  and  his  salvation  if  possible 
effected,  is  study  for  angels  to  eternity.  It  is  the  Divine  wis- 
dom in  its  application  to  men  revealed  in  the  Word  of  God, 
incarnated  in  the  Son  of  Man.  The  goodness,  the  love,  and 
the  mercy  with  which  the  Lord  stands  at  the  door  of  every 
man's  heart,  seeking  through  the  reason  He  has  given  him 
to  enter  and  guide  him  in  the  way  of  His  own  salvation,  was 
to  Swedenborg  beyond  all  expression. 

From  a  multitude  of  passages  in  the  Adversaria  bearing 
on  these  points,  let  us  select  a  few  :  — 


236  OPENING  OF  THE  SCRIPTURES. 

"A  crowd  of  many  kinds  and  species  of  spirits  I  have  been 
surrounded  with  by  turns,  as  also  of  those  who  died  many 
ages  ago,  in  order  that  of  the  Divine  mercy  of  God  Messiah 
I  might  learn  the  nature  of  spirits  and  how  they  operate,  and 
that  God  Messiah  disposes  and  rules  them  all  wholly  accord- 
ing to  His  pleasure,  which  by  the  experience  of  so  many 
months  could  not  but  become  known  to  me  "  (iii.  135). 

"  Whatever  is  thought  should  be  directed  to  God  Messiah, 
because  all  things  come  from  Him ;  for  nothing  ever  in  the 
world  comes  before  the  senses,  nothing  in  interior  natural 
things  before  the  natural  mind,  nothing  in  most  interior 
things  before  the  spiritual  mind,  which  does  not  have  respect 
to  the  kingdom  of  God  Messiah,  and  so  to  God  Messiah 
Himself"  (v.  535).  "No  one  ever  becomes  free  until  he 
becomes  the  servant  of  God  Messiah ;  for  then  he  is  ruled 
to  the  true  and  best  end,  and  he  is  wise  and  is  affected  with 
love  for  the  end"  (v.  834). 

"Influx  is  from  the  inmost  into  what  is  called  the  more 
interior,  and  from  this  into  the  interior  class.  He  who  is  not 
in  order  has  no  perception  of  the  things  which  are  inmost, 
that  is,  we  may  say,  of  what  are  Divine ;  but  he  who  is  held 
in  order  perceives  the  least  assents  and  dissents  in  the  affec- 
tions and  persuasions,  whenever  they  are  formed  by  evil 
angels,  or  by  those  who  have  evil  in  themselves  :  so  that 
there  is  a  certain  dissent  in  inmosts,  whatever  persuasion  is 
induced ;  and  this  has  happened  to  me  so  frequently  that 'the 
times  cannot  be  numbered.  .  .  .  This  very  day,  when  I  was 
led  by  persuasions  to  believing  about  a  certain  matter  that  it 
was  so,  I  yet  perceived  inmostly  as  it  were  that  the  spirit  was 
a  deceiver,  who  was  to  be  shunned"  (vi.  2056). 

Speaking  of  the  presence  of  the  Lord  on  Mount  Sinai,  in 
the  Tabernacle,  and  in  the  Temple,  he  says, — 

"  God  Messiah  is  everywhere,  but  is  in  holy  places  with 
more  and  other  power,  of  truth  and  love,  than  elsewhere.  .  .  . 
Hence  also  in  the  prayer  of  the  benediction  it  is  prayed  that 
He  may  look  upon  us,  when  yet  He  sees  always,  even  the 


PEACE  FROM  THE  LORD. 


237 


least  things  in  the  universe.  .  .  .  This  presence  by  the  Divine 
mercy  of  God  Messiah  it  has  been  granted  me  to  perceive. 
...  It  is  an  inmost  affection  which  can  in  no  way  be  de- 
scribed, and  if  described  with  many  words  it  could  not  be 
exhausted"  (v.  1261-62). 

Speaking  of  the  peace  of  the  benediction,  he  says, — 

"  In  this  peace  there  is  nothing  at  all  of  quiescence,  but 
very  life.  .  .  .  Something  of  this  peace  has  been  given  me 
by  the  Divine  mercy  of  the  Lord  to  experience,  but  I  testify 
sacredly  that  no  tongue  can  ever  express  it.  For  it  is  the 
complex  of  all  happiness,  with  the  highest  life,  freed  from  the 
life  which  is  wont  to  spring  up  from  desires,  bodily  pleasures, 
care  and  anxiety  about  things  that  are  to  come.  It  is  to  be 
in  the  bosom  of  God  Messiah"  (vii.  6924-25). 

Such  peace  came  to  him  after  enduring  spiritual  tempta- 
tions from  evil  spirits,  by  which  he  learned  more  and  more 
fully  that  the  sole  deliverance  from  evil  is  the  Lord  :  — 

"As  regards  the  temptations  of  the  Devil,  they  are  so 
wicked  and  horrible  that  they  can  in  no  way  be  described. 
His  most  crafty  machinations  are  unspeakable,  and  beyond 
man's  power  to  apprehend ;  for  evil  always  puts  on  an  ap- 
pearance to  mislead  man.  Hence  unless  man  is  guarded  by 
God  Messiah,  he  can  in  no  wise  escape,  not  even  the  least 
moment,  from  falling  headlong  into  damnation.  But  the 
temptations,  which  are  many,  that  I  have  learned  by  experi- 
ence, are  to  be  rather  consigned  to  deep  oblivion  than  pub- 
lished to  men;  for  all  minds  [of  themselves]  must  needs 
fall.  By  this  experience  I  have  learned  this, —  that  unless  God 
Messiah  had  liberated  me  from  these  extreme  temptations, 
which  in  my  belief  I  could  by  no  means  sustain,  I  should 
have  fallen  into  utter  damnation.  To  the  liberation  my  own 
powers  could  not  contribute  in  the  least ;  they  would  have 
plunged  me  into  damnation,  unless  God  Messiah  with  His 
own  aid  had  been' present  with  me"  (vii.  7529). 

"With  regard  to  myself,  as  has  been  given  me  to  perceive 
clearly,  I  could  not  but  succumb  to  all  [such  temptations]  ; 


238  OPENING  OF   THE   SCRIPTURES. 

for  when  brought  to  a  certain  point,  as  for  myself  I  suc- 
cumbed ;  but  yet  was  raised  up  by  God  Messiah.  The  temp- 
tations, I  think,  have  been  brought  to  me  for  a  good  end,  so 
that  I  might  clearly  perceive  that  man  can  in  no  wise  sus- 
tain temptations,  not  even  the  least  of  them,  from  himself. 
Wherefore  it  is  the  work  of  God  Messiah  alone  that  man  is 
sustained  in  temptations"  (v.  7509). 

It  is  of  importance  to  know  in  what  way  Swedenborg  now 
received  his  instruction  as  to  the  Divine  things  he  was  learn- 
ing and  beginning  to  teach.  In  regard  to  the  nature  of 
things  in  the  other  world,  he  was  continually  gaining  informa- 
tion from,  as  he  says,  "things  heard  and  seen."  But,  he  also 
says  emphatically,  "  they  who  speak  from  permission  of  the 
Lord,  never  speak  anything  which  takes  away  freedom  of  rea- 
son, nor  teach ;  for  the  Lord  alone  teaches  man,  but  medi- 
ately through  the  Word  in  illustration.  ...  I  have  had  speech 
with  spirits  and  with  angels  now  for  many  years,  neither  has 
any  spirit  dared,  nor  any  angel  wished,  to  tell  me  anything, 
still  less  to  instruct  me  concerning  anything  in  the  Word, 
or  concerning  any  doctrine  from  the  Word ;  but  the  Lord 
alone  has  taught  me, — who  was  revealed  to  me,  and  after- 
wards continually  appeared  and  now  appears  before  my  eyes 
as  a  sun  in  which  He  is,  as  He  appears  to  the  angels, — 
and  has  enlightened  me"  (D.  P.  135).  Again,  in  his  last 
complete  work,  The  True  Christian  Religion,  he  attests  that 
he  has  never  received  anything  relating  to  the  doctrines  of 
the  New  Church  from  any  angel,  but  from  the  Lord  alone, 
while  he  was  reading  the  Word  (n.  779).  This,  indeed,  he 
expressly  and  elaborately  shows  to  be  the  way,  and  the  only 
way,  in  which  man  is  at  this  day  taught  Divine  things  : — 

"  Illustration  is  as  follows  :  Light  conjoined  to  heat  flows 
in  through  heaven  from  the  Lord.  This  heat,  which  is 
Divine  love,  affects  the  will,  whence  man  has  the  affection  of 
good  ;  and  this  light,  which  is  Divine  wisdom,  affects  the  un- 
derstanding, whence  man  has  the  thought  of  truth.  From 


ILLUSTRATION   FROM   THE  LORD.  239 

these  two  fountains,  which  are  the  will  and  understanding,  all 
things  of  the  love  and  all  things  of  man's  science  are  affected, 
but  only  those  things  are  excited  and  presented  to  view 
which  relate  to  the  subject.  Thus  illustration  is  effected  by 
the  Word  from  the  Lord,  in  which  Word  everything  derived 
from  the  spiritual  within  communicates  with  heaven,  and 
the  Lord  flows  in  through  heaven,  and  into  that  which  is  at 
the  time  under  man's  view.  .  .  .  To  be  illustrated  through 
heaven  from  the  Lord  is  to  be  illustrated  by  the  Holy  Spirit, 
for  the  Holy  Spirit  is  the  Divine  proceeding  from  the  Lord 
as  a  sun,  from  which  heaven  is."  (A.  E.  177. ) 

"  All  such  [who  love  truths  and  will  them  from  the  Lord] 
are  illustrated,  or  enlightened,  when  they  read  the  Word ;  for 
the  Lord  is  in  the  Word,  and  speaks  with  every  one  accord- 
ing to  his  comprehension  :  if  these  hear  speech  from  spirits, 
which  also  they  do  occasionally,  they  are  not  taught  but  are 
led,  and  this  so  providentially  that  the  man  is  still  left  to  him- 
self, since,  as  was  before  said,  every  man  is  led  of  the  Lord 
by  affections,  and  thinks  from  them  as  from  himself,  in  free- 
dom. If  this  were  not  the  case,  man  would  not  be  capable 
of  reformation,  neither  could  he  be  enlightened.  But  men 
are  enlightened  variously,  every  one  according  to  the  quality 
of  his  affection  and  consequent  intelligence  :  those  who  are 
in  the  spiritual  affection  of  truth  are  elevated  into  the  light 
of  heaven,  so  as  to  perceive  the  illustration,  or  enlightenment. 
It  has  been  given  me  to  see  it,  and  from  it  to  perceive  dis- 
tinctly what  comes  from  the  Lord,  and  what  from  the  angels  ; 
what  comes  from  the  Lord  is  written  [by  me],  and  what 
comes  from  the  angels  is  not  written."  (A.  E.  1183.) 

The  conclusion  of  this  paragraph,  though  not  precisely  to 
our  present  purpose,  is  so  clear  and  concise  a  statement  of 
the  author's  mission,  that  we  do  not  like  to  omit  it :  — 

"Moreover  it  has  been  given  me  to  discourse  with  the 
angels  as  man  with  man,  and  likewise  to  see  the  things  which 
are  in  the  heavens  and  which  are  in  the  hells.  The  reason 
was  because  the  end  of  the  present  Church  is  approaching, 


UN 


240  OPENING  OF  THE  SCRIPTURES. 

and  the  beginning  of  a  new  one  is  at  hand,  which  will  be  the 
New  Jerusalem,  to  which  it  is  to  be  revealed  that  the  Lord 
rules  the  universe,  both  heaven  and  the  world ;  that  there 
is  a  heaven  and  a  hell,  and  what  is  the  quality  of  each ;  that 
men  live  also  as  men  after  death, —  in  heaven  those  who  have 
been  led  of  the  Lord,  in  hell  those  who  have  been  led  of 
themselves  ;  that  the  Word  is  the  Divine  itself  of  the  Lord  in 
the  earth ;  also  that  the  last  judgment  is  passed,  —  lest  man 
should  expect  it  in  this  world  to  eternity;  besides  many 
other  things  which  are  effects  of  the  light  now  arising  after 
darkness." 

The  nature  of  the  spiritual  affection  for  truth,  to  which  the 
enlightenment  described  is  granted,  is  more  fully  set  forth  in 
these  words :  — 

"They  who  read  the  Word  from  a  spiritual  affection  of 
truth,  which  is  the  love  of  knowing  truth  because  it  is  truth, 
see  the  truths  of  the  Word  and  rejoice  in  heart  when  they  see 
them.  The  reason  is  because  they  are  enlightened  from  the 
Lord.  This  illumination  descends  from  the  Lord  through 
heaven  from  the  light  there,  which  light  is  Divine  truth ;  to 
them  therefore  it  is  given  to  see  truths  from  their  own  light, 
and  this  in  the  Word,  because  the  Word  is  Divine  truth,  and 
in  it  are  treasured  up  all  the  truths  of  heaven.  But  they 
alone  are  in  this  light  who  are  in  the  two  loves  of  heaven, 
which  are  love  to  the  Lord  and  love  towards  the  neighbor ; 
for  these  loves  open  the  interior  or  superior  mind,  which  is 
formed  to  receive  the  light  of  heaven,  and  through  which  that 
light  flows  in  and  enlightens  them."  (A.  E.  177.) 

Since  the  enlightenment  or  illumination  here  described  is 
not  only  the  very  grace  enjoyed  by  Swedenborg,  but  also 
that  by  which  all  spiritual  discernment  of  truth  is  given,  and 
in  effect  the  very  coming  of  the  Lord  promised  to  the  disci- 
ples, as  the  Spirit  of  Truth,  we  will  copy  some  further  illustra- 
tions of  its  nature  and  quality,  as  set  forth  in  the  explications 
of  the  "Arcana"  :  — 

"By — And  I  have  filled  him  with  the  spirit  of  God — 


ILLUSTRATION   FROM   THE  LORD.  241 

(Ex.  xxxi.  3)  is  signified  influx  and  illustration  from  Divine 
truth.  .  .  .  Influx  and  illustration  are  effected  in  this  manner  : 
man  is  such  that  as  to  his  interiors,  which  are  of  the  thought 
and  will,  he  can  look  downwards  and  can  look  upwards ;  to 
look  downwards  is  to  look  outwards  into  the  world  and  to 
himself,  and  to  look  upwards  is  to  look  inwards  to  heaven 
and  to  God.  Man  looks  outwards  from  himself,  which  is 
called  looking  downwards,  since  when  he  looks  from  himself 
he  looks  to  hell;  but  man  looks  inwards  not  from  himself 
but  from  the  Lord,  which  is  called  upwards,  because  he  is 
then  elevated  as  to  his  interiors,  which  are  of  the  will  and 
understanding,  by  the  Lord  to  heaven,  thus  to  the  Lord : 
the  interiors  also  are  actually  elevated,  and  then  are  actually 
withdrawn  from  the  body  and  from  the  world.  When  this 
is  effected,  the  interiors  of  man  really  come  into  heaven,  and 
into  its  light  and  heat :  hence  he  has  influx  and  illustration ; 
the  light  of  heaven  illuminates  the  understanding,  for  that 
light  is  Divine  truth,  which  proceeds  from  the  Lord  as  a  sun  ; 
and  the  heat  of  heaven  enkindles  the  will,  for  that  heat  is  the 
good  of  love  which  proceeds  together  with  the  light  from  the 
Lord  as  a  sun.  Since  man  is  then  among  the  angels,  there 
is  communicated  to  him  from  them,  that  is,  through  them 
from  the  Lord,  the  intelligence  of  truth  and  the  affection  of 
good.  This  communication  is  what  is  called  influx  and 
illustration.  But  it  is  to  be  known  that  influx  and  illustra- 
tion are  effected  according  to  the  faculty  of  reception  with 
man,  and  the  faculty  of  reception  is  according  to  the  love  of 
truth  and  of  good.  Wherefore  they  who  are  in  the  love  of 
truth  and  of  good  for  the  sake  of  truth  and  good  as  ends,  are 
elevated ;  but  they  who  are  not  in  the  love  of  truth  and  of 
good  for  the  sake  of  truth  and  good,  but  for  the  sake  of  self 
and  the  world,  inasmuch  as  they  continually  look  and  gravitate 
downwards,  cannot  be  elevated,  thus  cannot  receive  Divine 
influx  out  of  heaven,  and  be  illustrated."  (A.  C.  10,330.) 

"  From  the  Lord  proceeds  Divine  truth  immediately  and 
mediately:   that  which  proceeds   immediately  is  above  all 

16 


242  OPENING  OF   THE  SCRIPTURES. 

understanding  of  the  angels ;  but  that  which  proceeds  medi- 
ately is  adapted  to  the  angels  in  heaven  and  also  to  men,  for 
it  passes  through  heaven  and  puts  on  thence  an  angelic  and 
human  quality.  But  into  this  truth  the  Lord  flows  also  imme- 
diately, and  thus  leads  angels  and  men  as  well  immediately  as 
mediately.  .  .  .  That  there  is  immediate  influx  of  the  Lord 
where  there  is  also  mediate, — thus  in  the  last  of  order  as  well 
as  in  its  first, — has  been  told  me  from  heaven,  and  a  living 
perception  of  the  thing  has  been  given,  as  also  that  what 
takes  place  through  heaven  and  the  angels  there  is  very  little 
in  comparison."  (A.  C.  7004.)  "The  Lord  teaches  every 
one  by  means  of  the  Word,  and  grounds  His  teaching  on 
the  knowledges  which  man  is  in  possession  of,  never  infusing 
new  ones  immediately."  (S.  S.  26.) 

"Truth  proceeding  mediately  from  the  Divine  may  be 
given  with  man,  and  yet  tnis  not  be  conjoined  with  truth 
which  proceeds  immediately  from  the  Divine.  .  .  .  For  ex- 
ample, the  Prophets,  through  whom  the  Word  was  written, 
wrote  as  the  spirit  dictated  from  the  Lord ;  for  the  very 
words  which  they  wrote  were  pronounced  in  their  ears.  With 
them  was  truth  mediately  proceeding  from  the  Divine,  that  is, 
through  heaven,  but  not  therefore  truth  which  proceeded  im- 
mediately from  the  Divine ;  for  they  did  not  have  perception 
as  to  what  everything  signified  in  the  internal  sense.  When 
these  are  conjoined,  then,  as  has  been  said,  perception  is 
given.  This  conjunction  is  rarely  given  with  men,  but  it  is 
given  with  all  who  are  in  heaven,  especially  with  those  who 
are  in  the  inmost  or  third  heaven.  It  is  not  given  with  man 
unless  he  has  been  so  far  regenerated  that  he  can  be  elevated 
from  his  sensual  even  towards  his  rational  mind,  and  thus  be 
set  in  the  light  of  heaven  where  the  angels  are.  With  every 
man,  indeed,  there  is  Divine  influx,  as  well  immediate  as 
mediate,  but  there  is  not  conjunction  except  with  those  who 
have  perception  of  truth  from  good ;  for  those  with  whom 
Divine  immediate  influx  is  conjoined  with  mediate  suffer 
themselves  to  be  led  by  the  Lord,  but  those  with  whom  these 


TRUTH  FROM  THE  LORD.  243 

influxes  are  not  conjoined  lead  themselves, — and  this  they 
love."  (A.  C.  7055.) 

"Conjunction  of  truth  immediately  proceeding  from  the 
Divine  with  truth  which  proceeds  mediately  cannot  be  given 
except  in  good,  for  good  is  the  very  ground.  Truths  are 
seeds  which  grow  only  in  good  as  their  ground.  Good 
is  also  the  very  soul  of  truth;  from  good,  truth  exists  as 
truth  and  lives.  Truth  which  proceeds  immediately  from  the 
Divine  is  called  truth,  but  is  in  itself  good,  because  it  pro- 
ceeds from  the  Divine  good,  and  it  is  good  to  which  all  truth 
Divine  is  united.  It  is  called  truth,  because  in  heaven  it  ap- 
pears as  light,  but  it  is  a  sort  of  vernal  light  to  which  is  united 
heat  vivifying  all  things  of  the  earth.  From  these  things  it 
may  be  evident  also  that  the  conjunction  of  truth  proceeding 
immediately  from  the  Lord  with  truth  which  proceeds  medi- 
ately, cannot  be  given  except  in  good,  consequently  except 
man  be  affected  by  truth  for  the  sake  of  truth,  especially  for 
the  sake  of  good,  thus  for  the  sake  of  life  ;  for  then  man  is  in 
good.  .  .  .  Truth  proceeding  immediately  from  the  Divine 
enters  into  the  will  of  man,  this  is  its  way ;  but  truth  which 
proceeds  mediately  from  the  Divine  enters  into  the  under- 
standing of  man.  Wherefore,  conjunction  cannot  be  effected 
unless  the  will  and  understanding  act  as  one  ;  that  is,  unless 
the  will  wills  good  and  the  understanding  confirms  it  by  truth. 
When  there  is  thus  conjunction,  the  Lord  appears  as  present, 
and  His  presence  is  also  perceived.  But  when  there  is  not 
conjunction,  then  the  Lord  is  as  if  absent ;  but  His  absence 
is  not  perceived,  if  it  is  not  known  from  some  perception 
what  His  presence  is."  (A.  C.  7056.) 

"  With  regard  to  instruction  in  the  particulars  of  doctrine, 
this  is  given  when  truth  immediately  proceeding  from  the 
Divine  of  the  Lord  is  conjoined  with  truth  which  proceeds 
mediately,  for  then  perception  is  given.  This  conjunction  is 
given  especially  with  the  angels  who  are  in  the  inmost  or  third 
heaven,  and  are  called  celestial.  These  have  an  exquisite 
perception  of  truth  of  each  kind,  and  thence  of  the  presence 


244  OPENING  OF  THE  SCRIPTURES. 

of  the  Lord,  because  they  are  pre-eminently  in  good,  for  they 
have  the  good  of  innocence.  Therefore  they  are  nearest  to 
the  Lord,  and  in  shining  and  as  it  were  flamy  light,  for  they 
see  the  Lord  as  a  sun,  the  rays  of  whose  light  are  such  from 
nearness."  (A.  C.  7058.) 

The  light  of  the  Spirit  of  Truth,  guiding  into  all  truth,  is  a 
gift  that  the  Lord  stands  at  every  one's  door  desiring  to  give  ; 
and  it  is  given  freely  to  every  one  in  the  measure  in  which, 
by  closing  the  outer  door  against  natural  evil  impulses,  he 
suffers  his  Lord  to  open  the  inner  door  and  to  enter.  That 
to  Swedenborg  was  given  such  an  extraordinary  measure  of 
resistance  to  what  was  from  self  and  the  devil,  of  openness  to 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  of  love  and  desire  to  serve  Him,  and 
of  consequent  enlightenment,  was  due,  as  he  himself  does 
not  fail  to  tell  us,  to  no  merit  of  his  own, —  however  worthy 
he  may  seem  in  our  eyes, — but  solely  to  the  fact  that  the 
Lord  desired  to  open  thus  His  Word  to  men,  and  to  this 
end  graciously  led  and  prepared  him.* 

The  preparation  and  enlightenment  were  gradual  and  pro- 
gressive. At  times  he  saw  clearly  the  interior  meanings  of 
the  words  he  was  meditating  upon,  with  a  certainty  that  he 
saw  from  the  light  given  by  the  Spirit  of  Truth.  Then  he 
would  write,  "These  things  are  true  and  given  from  the 
Lord."  At  other  times  he  would  write,  "These  things  are 
now  very  obscure  to  me"  (Adv.  7647):  "When  the  time 
comes  to  publish,  it  will  be  seen  whether  these  things  are 
to  be  printed"  (943).  Sometimes  angels  would  flow  into  his 
mind  so  strongly  with  their  affection  and  understanding  of 
the  subject  he  was  studying,  that  he  could  not  change  the 
direction  they  gave  his  thoughts,  or  even  keep  his  hand  from 
writing  what  they  inspired  (3764,  4605).  Nothing  however 
that  was  written  in  this  way,  or  from  the  dictation  occasion- 
ally given  (7167),  was  permitted  to  be  published,  unless, 
while  coming  mediately  through  others,  it  was  perceived  to 
come  also  immediately  from  the  Lord  (v.  iii.  181).  Without 


INSTRUCTION   FROM  THE  LORD  ALONE.  245 

this  seal,  obliterandum  erat.  Destroyed  also  must  have 
been  whatever  he  may  by  habit  have  written  from  himself, 
without  the  well-known  seal  of  the  light  of  truth  from  the 
Lord ;  for  he  says  that  as  often  as  he  wished  to  consult  his 
intellect  in  heavenly  things,  he  seemed  to  himself  to  be 
falling  backwards,  and  would  have  fallen  utterly  if  he  had 
not  been  restored  by  the  Divine  mercy  of  the  Lord  (1282). 
What  can  be  stronger  than  this  declaration  ?  — 

"  No  word  which  I  bring  forth  and  write  is  my  own,  as  I 
can  sacredly  attest :  wherefore  if  any  one  should  attribute  to 
me  one  jot  of  the  things  written,  which  are  truths,  whether 
he  be  on  earth  or  in  heaven,  he  would  do  such  wrong  to 
God  Messiah  Himself  that  by  no  one  except  God  Messiah 
Himself  could  it  be  condoned"  (1654). 

"  Whenever  there  was  any  representation,  vision,  or  speech, 
I  was  held  interiorly  and  inmostly  in  reflection  on  the  things 
presented,  what  there  was  useful  and  good  to  be  learned 
from  them.  This  reflection  was  not  so  awaited  by  those 
who  presented  the  representations  and  visions,  or  who  were 
speaking  with  me  ;  and  sometimes  they  were  indignant  when 
they  perceived  that  I  was  reflecting.  So  it  came  to  pass  that 
I  was  instructed  by  no  spirit  nor  angel,  but  by  the  Lord 
alone,  from  whom  is  all  that  is  true  and  good.  .  .  .  And, 
besides,  when  they  wished  to  persuade  me,  I  perceived  an 
interior  or  inmost  persuasion  that  the  matter  was  thus  and 
so,  not  as  they  wished  to  persuade.  This  astonished  them. 
The  perception  was  manifest,  but  cannot  be  easily  described 
so  as  to  be  understood  by  men."  (S.  D.  1647.) 

This  last  passage  from  the  Spiritual  Diary,  soon  to  be  de- 
scribed, deserves  careful  study.  It  contains  the  explanation  of 
Swedenborg's  frequent  statements  that  what  he  taught  was 
from  the  Lord  alone.  He  never  means  that  words  were 
spoken  in  his  ear,  or  put  in  his  mouth  or  pen  by  the  Lord. 
He  means  always,  as  here,  that  in  whatever  was  presented  to 
his  eye  or  ear  or  thought,  by  man  or  spirit  or  angel,  by  his 
own  intellect,  by  the  words  of  Holy  Writ,  the  Lord  Himself, — 


246  OPENING  OF   THE  SCRIPTURES. 

by  His  own  immediate  influx  into  the  reason  which  He  gives 
and  preserves  with  man,  —  illumined  with  convincing  light 
the  things  that  were  from  Him.  In  further  illustration  he 
says, — 

"  Every  man  who  is  in  the  spiritual  affection  of  truth,  that 
is,  who  loves  the  truth  itself  because  it  is  truth,  is  enlightened 
by  the  Lord  when  he  reads  the  Word ;  but  not  the  man 
who  reads  it  from  natural  affection  alone,  which  is  called  the 
desire  of  knowing.  The  latter  does  not  see  anything  else 
than  what  accords  with  his  love,  or  with  the  principles  which 
he  has  either  gathered  himself  or  has  imbibed  from  others 
by  hearing  or  reading.  It  shall,  therefore,  be  told  in  a 
few  words  whence  and  to  what  man  enlightenment  comes 
through  the  Word.  That  man  has  enlightenment  who  shuns 
evils  because  they  are  sins,  and  because  they  are  against 
the  Lord  and  against  His  Divine  laws.  With  him,  and  not 
with  another,  the  spiritual  mind  is  opened ;  and  so  far  as  this 
is  opened,  so  far  the  light  of  heaven  enters,  and  from  the 
light  of  heaven  is  all  enlightenment  in  the  Word.  For, 
such  a  man  has  a  will  of  what  is  good,  and  this  will,  when 
it  is  determined  to  that  use,  becomes  in  the  understanding 
first  the  affection  of  truth,  then  the  perception  of  truth, 
and  soon  by  means  of  rational  light  the  thought  of  truth, — 
thus  decision  and  conclusion,  which  passes  thence  at  once 
into  the  memory  and  into  the  life  and  thus  remains.  This 
is  the  way  of  all  enlightenment  in  the  Word,  and  also  the 
way  of  reformation  and  regeneration  of  man.  But  it  is 
necessary  that  there  should  first  be  in  his  memory  knowl- 
edges of  spiritual  as  well  as  natural  things,  for  these  are  stores 
\J>enuaria~\  into  which  the  Lord  operates  by  means  of  the 
light  of  heaven ;  and  the  more  full  these  are,  and  free  from 
confirmed  falsities,  the  more  enlightened  is  the  perception 
given,  and  the  more  certain  the  conclusion ;  for  into  a  void 
and  empty  man  the  Divine  operation  does  not  fall."  (S.  D. 
part  vii.  2,  12.) 

"It  is  believed  that  man  might  better  be   enlightened 


NO   IMMEDIATE   REVELATION. 


247 


and  become  wise  if  he  should  have  immediate  revelation  by 
speech  with  spirits  and  angels ;  but  the  contrary  is  true.  En- 
lightenment by  means  of  the  Word  takes  place  by  an  interior 
way,  but  enlightenment  by  means  of  immediate  revelation 
takes  place  by  an  exterior  way.  The  interior  way  is  through 
the  will  into  the  understanding ;  the  exterior  way  is  through 
the  hearing  into  the  understanding.  Man  is  enlightened  by 
the  Lord  by  means  of  the  Word,  so  far  as  the  will  is  in  good  ; 
but  man  may  be  instructed  and  as  it  were  enlightened,  al- 
though the  will  is  in  evil.  And  what  enters  the  understanding 
with  a  man  whose  will  is  in  evil  is  not  within  but  without 
him,  is  only  in  the  memory  and  not  in  the  life  ;  and  what  is 
without  a  man  and  not  in  his  life,  this  gradually  disappears, 
if  not  before,  yet  after  death ;  for  the  will  which  is  in  evil 
either  casts  it  out,  or  suffocates  it,  or  falsifies  and  profanes  it ; 
for  the  will  makes  the  life  of  man,  and  continually  acts  into 
the  understanding,  and  that  which  is  from  the  memory  in  the 
understanding,  it  regards  as  extraneous  :  the  understanding, 
on  the  other  hand,  does  not  act  into  the  will,  but  only  teaches 
how  the  will  should  act.  Wherefore,  though  man  should  have 
learned  from  heaven  all  things  which  even  the  angels  know, 
or  though  he  should  have  learned  all  things  which  are  in  the 
Word,  and  in  all  the  teachings  of  the  Church,  what  the 
Fathers  have  written  and  the  Councils  have  decreed,  and  yet 
his  will  be  in  evil,  he  would  after  death  be  regarded  as  one 
who  knows  nothing ;  for  since  he  does  not  will  what  he 
knows,  and  since  evil  hates  truth,  the  man  himself  then  ejects 
such  things,  and  in  place  of  them  adopts  falses  agreeing  with 
the  evil  of  his  will.  Moreover,  there  is  not  given  to  any 
spirit  nor  to  any  angel  permission  to  instruct  any  man  on 
this  earth  in  Divine  truths,  but  the  Lord  Himself  teaches 
every  one  by  means  of  the  Word ;  and  He  teaches  him  just 
so  far  as  man  receives  good  from  Him  in  the  will,  and  this 
good  is  received  just  so  far  as  he  shuns  evils  as  sins.  Every 
man  also  is  in  the  society  of  spirits,  as  to  his  affections  and 
thoughts  thence,  in  which  he  is  as  one  with  them.  Wherefore 


248  OPENING  OF  THE  SCRIPTURES. 

spirits  speaking  with  man,  speak  from  his  affections  and  ac- 
cording to  them.  Man  cannot  speak  with  others  unless  first 
the  societies  in  which  he  habitually  is,  are  removed,  which 
does  not  take  place  except  by  the  reformation  of  his  will. 
.  .  .  From  these  things  it  is  evident  that  the  mediate  revela- 
tion which  takes  place  through  the  Word  is  much  better  than 
the  immediate  revelation  which  takes  place  through  spirits." 
(S.  D.  vii.  2,  13.) 

"Representations"  were  referred  to  in  a  previous  quotation. 
Swedenborg  has  much  to  say  of  them,  as  forming  an  important 
means  of  instruction  in  the  other  life.  He  speaks  of  them  as 
being  produced  by  spirits  and  angels  in  such  number  and 
variety  and  living  power  that  we  could  have  no  conception  of 
what  he  means,  were  it  not  for  our  dreams.  In  these  we 
often  have  such  representations  induced  by  spirits.  Rarely, 
they  may  have  real  and  true  significance,  could  we  but  per- 
ceive it ;  and  then  what  can  be  learned  by  means  of  them  is 
more  than  words  can  tell.  Let  us  quote  for  an  example  what 
Swedenborg  says  of  a  representation  he  saw  given  by  angels 
in  teaching  children  about  the  Lord's  life  on  earth  :  — 

"  Children  together  -with  those  in  innocence  were  softly 
representing  the  Messiah  put  into  the  sepulchre,  yet  by  no 
means  presenting  the  Messiah  directly,  but  another ;  so  that 
it  might  be  known  as  from  afar  that  the  Messiah  was  signified, 
as  also  that  after  the  resurrection  He  descended  to  the  bound 
in  the  pit,  and  loosed  those  who  were  there  captive  and  took 
them  up  into  heaven  with  Himself,  and  that  He  was  joined  to 
His  own  Divine  Essence.  .  .  .  When  they  were  representing 
the  descent  to  those  beneath,  they  represented  most  beauti- 
fully very  soft  little  cords,  with  which  they  wished  to  raise  up 
God  Messiah  from  thence,  and  by  which  they  wished  also  to 
represent  the  longings  of  love,  given  them  by  God  Messiah, 
to  do  this."  (S.  D.  233-35.) 

Of  the  various  ways  in  which  Swedenborg  perceived  the 
things  of  the  other  world,  we  find  frequent  mention  :  — 

"  There  are  four  kinds  of  sight  which  have  been  shown  me  : 


VARIOUS   KINDS  OF   VISIONS.  249 

the  first  is  the  sight  of  sleep,  as  clear  as  that  of  day,  so  that 
in  the  sleep  I  should  have  said  that  if  this  was  sleep,  wakeful- 
ness  too  must  be  sleep.  The  second  kind  is  vision  with  the 
eyes  closed,  which  is  as  clear  as  with  the  eyes  open,  and  like 
objects,  even  more  beautiful  and  delightful,  are  presented  to 
be  seen.  Similar  sight  may  occur  with  the  eyes  open,  and 
two  of  three  times  has  occurred  to  me.  The  third  kind  is 
in  the  condition  of  eyes  open,  when  those  things  which  are 
in  heaven  are  represented,  spirits  and  other  things.  This 
is  representative  vision,  and  has  become  very  familiar  to  me, 
but  is  more  obscure.  It  differs  entirely  from  the  common 
imagination  of  men.  A  fourth  kind  is  while  man  is  separated 
from  the  body  and  is  in  the  spirit,  and  then  he  can  in  no  way 
know  otherwise  than  that  he  is  awake  ;  for  he  enjoys  all  the 
senses,  such  as  touch,  hearing,  and  sight,  and  I  doubt  not 
about  the  rest.  The  sight  surpasses  that  of  wakefulness,  be- 
cause it  is  exquisite.  ...  As  to  this  fourth  kind,  it  has 
been  granted  me  four  or  five  times,  and  indeed  with  much 
pleasantness."  (S.  D.  651-53.) 

This  was  written  about  three  years  after  the  commence- 
ment of  his  visions,  and  is  in  accordance  with  what  we  have 
already  seen,  that  the  full  opening  of  his  spiritual  senses,  with 
abstraction  from  the  body,  was  effected  very  gradually.  It 
would  appear  that,  in  these  earlier  years,  what  he  saw  of  the 
other  world  came  to  him  almost  exclusively  either  in  sleep,  or 
by  representations  when  awake  and  his  eyes  open,  the  latter 
vision  being  more  obscure.  Not  more  than  four  or  five  times 
in  the  three  years  had  he  been  in  full  communication  with 
the  other  world. 

The  Adversaria  came  to  a  close  in  February,  1 74  7,  the 
notes  of  explication  having  been  continued  through  Jere- 
miah, but  with  less  fulness  in  the  Prophets  than  in  the  Books 
of  Moses.  Little  was  written  later  than  the  previous  Novem- 
ber, for  our  author  was  now  at  work  on  an  index  of  Biblical 
subjects,  for  his  own  use,  and  was  also  writing  copious  mar- 
ginal notes  in  his  Bible.  About  the  time  of  the  close  of  the 


25O  OPENING  OF   THE  SCRIPTURES. 

Adversaria,  in  1747,  he  begins  what  is  known  as  his  Spirit- 
ual Diary,  in  which  he  now  records  at  greater  length  such 
spiritual  experiences  as  he  had  previously  made  note  of  in 
the  Adversaria.  The  "Diary"  begins  with  the  end  of  the 
Biblical  Index,  the  first  half  year  being  lost  and  known  only 
by  the  author's  index,  and  is  continued  more  than  ten  years. 
As  published  in  the  original  Latin  by  Dr.  Tafel,  it  cnakes 
nine  octavo  volumes,  with  rather  more  pages  than  the  Adver- 
saria. These  pages  are  full  of  interesting  experience  and 
information,  from  which  we  have  already  begun  to  draw. 
Though  Swedenborg  did  not  publish  the  "Diary"  by  itself, 
he  drew  from  it  many  illustrative  passages  for  the  works  that 
he  felt  himself  commissioned  to  publish,  in  the  unfolding  of 
the  Scriptures  and  their  doctrine.  Though  not  designed  for 
publication,  it  none  the  less  contains  many  items  that  help  us 
to  understand  the  more  important  works,  and  enable  us  to 
trace  more  intelligently  Swedenborg's  progress  and  prepa- 
ration for  his  mission,  on  which  we  do  not  yet  find  him  fair- 
ly entered.  He  was  feeling  his  way.  His  eyes  had  been 
touched,  but  he  did  not  yet  see  all  clearly.  We  might  almost 
say,  he  saw  men — spirits — as  trees  walking.  He  was  going 
through  temptations,  for  more  interior  purification.  He  was 
learning  to  live  only  from  the  Lord  in  love  for  His  Holy  will. 
He  felt  the  angels  of  the  Lord  about  him,  and  was  instructed 
by  them  by  representations  ;  but  he  was  not  as  yet  one  with 
them, — to  see  as  they  saw,  and  to  share  their  perfect  pro- 
tection in  their  Lord's  love.  What  he  had  written  was  in  the 
line  of  preparation ;  but  it  had  not  yet  the  clearness  that  was 
needed,  and  that  could  come  only  from  a  higher  point  of 
view, — that  of  the  angels  who  see  the  Lord's  ends  from  love 
for  them,  and  from  the  ends  comprehend  the  means.  This 
was  to  come. 

A  marginal  note  in  Swedenborg's  Biblical  Index,  under 
date  of  Aug.  7,  1747,  indicates  that  at  that  time  he  was  first 
introduced,  by  change  of  state,  into  the  "celestial  kingdom." 
To  understand  this,  we  want  the  help  of  what  he  tells  us  later, 


VARIOUS  CLASSES  OF   ANGELS.  25! 

that  the  whole  heavens  are  twofold,  celestial  and  spiritual,  or 
delighting  on  the  one  hand  in  love  to  the  Lord,  and  on  the 
other  in  wisdom  from  Him  and  in  love  to  the  neighbor ;  and 
further,  that  these  two  regions  of  the  mind  are  distinct,  and 
that  the  one  may  be  opened  and  determine  the  state  of  the 
man,  without  the  other.  Swedenborg  as  a  philosopher  could 
not  but  be  associated  first  with  angels  of  the  spiritual  king- 
dom ;  but  in  order  to  understand  the  state  of  those  who  are 
in  the  celestial  kingdom  and  the  sense  of  the  Scriptures  from 
which  they  draw  their  life,  it  was  necessary  for  him  to  be  in- 
troduced also  into  this, —  that  is,  to  have  this  region  of  his 
mind  opened  in  some  degree. 

About  this  time  he  speaks  in  his  "  Diary"  of  three  classes 
of  angels  :  — 

"Angels  of  the  first  class,  to  be  called  celestial,  who  are 
ruled  immediately  by  God  Messiah  through  love,  and  who 
have  an  elevated  understanding  of  good  and  thence  of  truth  ; 
angels  of  the  second  class,  to  be  called  truly  spiritual,  who 
are  ruled  by  God  Messiah  mediately  through  the  celestial 
angels ;  angels  of  the  third  class,  to  be  called  affections  or 
goodnesses,  who  are  ruled  through  both  the  celestial  and  the 
spiritual  angels,  thus  mediately  by  God  Messiah,  for  they 
have  not  such  intelligence  and  wisdom  that  they  can  be  im- 
mediately acted  on  by  Him.  The  rest  are  called  spirits,  and 
are  of  endless  variety.  Angels  ascend  according  to  their 
perfection,  and  hence  are  to  be  called  superior  and  inferior ; 
or  they  advance  inwardly,  and  hence  are  to  be  called  interior, 
more  interior,  and  inmost.  These  are  signified  by  Jacob, 
Isaac,  and  Abraham ;  also  by  Egypt,  Assyria,  and  Israel,  in 
Isaiah."  (S.  D.  156.) 

Up  to  this  time,  then,  we  understand  that  the  angels  from 
whom  Swedenborg  had  received  assistance  were  of  the  spirit- 
ual class,  who  are  ruled,  not  immediately,  but  mediately  by 
the  Lord,  and  who,  as  he  says  elsewhere,  are  affected  not  so 
much  by  His  love  and  His  ends  as  by  His  wisdom  and  His 
means.  In  June  or  July  previous  he  began  a  new  explication 


2$2  OPENING  OF   THE  SCRIPTURES. 

of  Genesis,  in  his  marginal  notes,  premising  that  for  several 
years  he  had  been  instructed  through  spirits  and  angels 
about  the  other  world  and  the  doctrine  of  true  faith,  and 
"respecting  the  interior  and  more  interior  [or  spiritual] 
senses  of  both  the  Old  and  the  New  Testaments,  which  con- 
stitute their  spirit  and  life."  Thus  he  did  not  allude  to  the 
inmost  or  celestial  sense ;  and  in  the  explication  of  creation 
as  regeneration,  he  fell  far  short  of  what  he  was  soon  to  know 
and  teach. 

The  superior  intelligence  into  which  he  was  now  admitted, 
by  association  with  celestial  angels,  is  reason  enough  why  he 
should  again  lay  aside  the  explications  he  had  been  develop- 
ing, from  a  lower  point  of  view,  and  for  the  fourth  and  last 
time  begin  at  Genesis,  under  the  light  now  given  so  much 
more  fully  and  nearly  from  the  Lord  Himself.  The  need  of 
this  new  beginning  is  very  apparent  from  this  fact  alone,  that 
he  now  sees  the  work  of  creation  to  describe  in  particular  the 
process  of  regeneration  with  the  most  ancient  people,  who 
had  no  inherited  evil  to  be  regenerated  from,  but  only  the 
infirmities  inherent  in  human  nature.  This  people  regen- 
erated became  of  the  celestial  type  on  earth,  and  celestial 
angels  in  heaven.  It  was  impossible  for  any  one  to  under- 
stand them,  or  the  regeneration  and  other  events  signified 
by  what  is  described  in  these  early  chapters,  without  having 
his  mind  opened  inwardly  and  upwardly  till  he  could  come 
into  association  with  them,  and  feel  and  think  with  them. 
Notably  is  this  true  again  with  what  is  described  under  the 
representation  of  Abraham,  the  celestial  state  of  man,  and 
the  celestial  human  or  childhood's  state  of  the  Lord's  own 
humanity. 

We  do  not,  however,  understand  that  when  Swedenborg 
was  introduced  into  the  celestial  kingdom  he  came  into  the 
inmost,  most  ancient  heaven.  Besides  the  general  division, 
as  of  right  and  left,  into  two  kingdoms,  he  tells  us  that  the 
inmost  heaven  is  celestial,  the  middle  heaven  spiritual,  and 
the  lower  or  outer  heaven  both  celestial  and  spiritual-natural. 


THE  CELESTIAL   HEAVEN. 


253 


It  is  into  association  with  this  celestial-natural  heaven  that 
we  understand  Swedenborg  to  have  come,  for  more  or  less 
permanence,  and  to  have  gained  intercourse  thereby  with 
the  inmost  or  truly  celestial  heaven  only  rarely,  for  special 
purpose.  Some  months  after  the  date  noticed  he  says,  "  Dur- 
ing a  considerable  time,  even  for  some  weeks,  celestial  spirits 
abode  with  me"  (S.  D.  1105);  and  a  little  later  he  speaks  of 
the  influx  from  the  more  interior  heaven  as  being  in  its  in- 
ward joy  and  peace  more  than  he  could  bear,  and  he  won- 
ders whether  the  angels  of  the  inmost  heaven  are  holy  and 
their  influence  the  Holy  Spirit.  Answer  came  from  them 
through  intermediates  that  they  were  not  holy,  but  that  the 
Lord  alone  is  Holy;  and  when  he  inquired  in  thought 
whether  any  born  on  earth  at  this  day  can  be  admitted  into 
that  heaven,  answer  seemed  to  come  that  they  cannot,  but 
only  those  who  lived  on  this  earth  in  the  Most  Ancient 
Church,  and  now  some  from  other  earths.1  (S.  D.  1198, 
1 200.) 

This  appears  to  be  his  first  acquaintance  with  this  inmost 
heaven  of  innocence,  but  he  is  permitted  to  learn  more  for 
the  sake  of  unfolding  what  belongs  to  it  in  the  Word  :  — 

"The  sons  of  the  [Most]  Ancient  Church  spoke  with 
angels  during  their  life  on  earth,  and  had  continual  asso- 
ciation with  them,  because  to  them  in  external  things  in- 
ternal corresponding  things  were  represented."  (S.  D.  185, 
Aug.  28,  1747-) 

"  Very  many  things  occur  in  the  Word  of  God  Messiah, 
both  of  the  Old  and  of  the  New  Testament,  which  cannot 
but  appear  unintelligible,  for  the  reason  that  the  human  race 
of  this  day  is  entirely  changed  from  the  men  who  lived  in 
the  Most  Ancient  Church  and  those  who  lived  afterwards  in 
the  Ancient.  If  those  men  had  lived  to  the  present  time, 

1  A  year  or  two  later,  in  the  second  volume  of  the  Arcana  Ccelestia,  n.  1531, 
he  says, —  "  That  I  might  be  confirmed  in  this,  that  the  Lord  appears  to  the 
celestial  angels  as  a  sun,  and  to  the  spiritual  angels  as  a  moon,  by  the  Divine 
mercy  of  the  Lord  my  interior  vision  was  so  far  opened,  and  I  plainly  saw  the 
moon  shining ;  .  .  .  but  it  was  not  given  me  to  see  the  sun." 


254  OPENING  OF  THE  SCRIPTURES. 

these  things  could  be  known  from  their  experience  and  reve- 
lation ;  but  now  they  may  be  better  known  from  the  state  of 
their  spirits  or  souls  in  heaven"  (Sept.  15,  1747). 

"As  before  said,  the  inhabitants  [of  Jupiter]  speak  with 
their  spirits,  just  as  also  did  the  sons  of  the  Most  Ancient 
Church, — which  may  be  evident  from  the  history  of  the 
creation,  with  both  good  and  evil ;  for  in  the  Most  Ancient 
Church  there  was  not  so  much  of  speech  and  memory  as 
now,  but  more  of  imagination  and  thought"  (Jan.  26,  1748). 

It  may  at  first  surprise  us  that  Swedenborg's  acquaintance 
in  the  other  world  should  have  extended  to  the  spirits  of 
other  earths ;  but  we  cease  to  wonder  when  we  learn  of  him 
that  all  souls  arrange  themselves  in  the  other  life  according 
to  their  affinities,  and  that  these  are  determined  by  their 
thought  and  feeling  in  regard  to  the  Lord.  When,  therefore, 
Swedenborg  came  himself  into  a  state  which  could  appreci- 
ate that  of  the  men  of  the  Most  Ancient  Church,  it  was  not 
difficult  for  him  to  come  into  communication  with  the  spirits 
from  Jupiter,  whose  state,  as  we  see,  is  of  a  kindred  nature. 
The  way  was  thus  opened,  but  the  main  purpose  was  that  he 
might  learn  from  themselves  that  they  as  well  as  we  depend 
on  the  One  Lord,  Jesus  Christ :  — 

"They  say  that  they  worship  the  only  Lord  of  heaven, 
whom  they  do  not  name,  but  they  know  that  the  only  Lord 
rules  all.  Him  therefore  they  seek  after  death  and  find,  who 
is  Jesus  Christ.  Being  asked  whether  they  knew  that  the 
only  Lord  is  Man,  they  replied  that  they  all  know  that  He  is 
Man,  for  He  has  been  seen  by  many  as  Man,  and  He  in- 
structs them  concerning  the  truth,  preserves  them,  and  gives 
to  those  who  believe  in  Him  to  have  eternal  life"  (Jan  24, 
1748.) 

"There  were  some  spirits  from  that  earth  when  I  was  read- 
ing the  seventeenth  chapter  of  John,  who  heard  it  and  won- 
dered that  the  only  Lord  had  become  Man  and  had  been 
on  the  earth  as  another  man ;  but  yet  they  said  that  all  the 
things  were  Divine"  (Jan.  26,  1748). 


SPIRITS   OF    OTHER   PLANETS.  255 

Here  we  see  the  use  of  this  communication  to  the  spirits  of 
Jupiter,  that  they  were  enabled  to  listen  to  the  Gospel  and  to 
learn  how  their  only  Lord,  whom  they  knew  to  be  Man,  had 
come  into  the  world  and  been  born  and  suffered  death  on 
the  cross  in  order  to  save  the  human  race.  And  to  Sweden- 
borg  the  use  of  the  communication,  as  would  appear  from  his 
language,  was  most  important.  Two  years  previously,  in  his 
first  theological  writings,  his  usual  term  for  our  Lord  was  the 
Only-Begotten  Son.  In  a  short  time,  finding  everything  in 
the  Word  and  in  the  other  world  to  depend  on  Him,  he 
adopted  the  expression  "  God  Messiah,"  and  used  it  constantly 
up  to  the  time  of  this  meeting  with  the  spirits  of  Jupiter,  with 
occasional  reference  to  God  the  Father.  Now,  hearing  them 
talk  of  the  only  Lord,  and  perceiving  that  his  God  Messiah 
was  recognized  as  this  only  Lord  of  the  universe,  whether  in 
consequence  or  as  a  coincidence,  he  drops  the  expression 
and  henceforth  speaks  only  of  the  LORD. 

In  this  connection  the  following,  of  a  later  date,  Sept.  23, 
1748,  is  of  particular  interest :  — 

"  When  I  was  writing  about  the  spirits  of  Mercury,  that 
knowledge  was  promised  them  and  that  an  image  of  the  sun 
was  shown  them,  and  they  said  that  it  was  not  the  Lord  be- 
cause they  did  not  see  a  face ;  and  when  spirits  were  speak- 
ing about  this,  but  what  they  were  saying  I  do  not  know, — 
then  appeared  the  Lord  as  the  sun,  the  Lord  in  the  midst 
surrounded  with  as  it  were  a  solar  band.  The  spirits  of  Mer- 
cury, profoundly  humbled,  then  subsided,  and  acknowledged 
Him  in  the  anxiety  of  their  humiliation.  Presently  He  was 
seen  by  the  spirits  of  this  earth,  as  in  the  world,  and  by  those 
who  saw  Him  in  the  world.  One  after  another  they  confessed, 
till  there  were  many,  that  He  is  the  Lord  who  was  in  the 
world,  and  this  in  the  presence  of  the  whole  company.  After- 
wards He  was  seen  also  by  the  spirits  of  the  inhabitants  of 
Jupiter,  who  also  declared  aloud  that  He  was  the  One  whom 
they  had  seen,  for  on  that  earth  occasionally  He  presents 
Himself  to  view." 


256  OPENING  OF   THE  SCRIPTURES. 

On  the  30th  of  January,  1 748,  Swedenborg  notes, — 

"When  I  was  in  bed,  before  I  fell  asleep,  I  heard  a  general 
singing  of  heaven  about  me,  which  was  of  many  angels  of  the 
interior  heaven. ...  It  was  said  to  me  that  the  whole  heavens 
thus  continually  give  glory  to  the  Lord  and  thus  glorify  Him. 
That  such  glorification  is  continual  I  was  able  to  conclude 
also  from  this,  that  whenever  I  breathed  with  a  certain  silent 
cadence,  I  was  following  those  who  were  singing  in  like 
measure,  as  in  great  choirs  :  from  this  I  could  know  that 
the  glorifying  is  perpetual." 

To  this  is  added  that  he  was  in  the  sphere  of  this  glorifica- 
tion for  half  a  day  or  more,  and  that  when  his  thoughts  de- 
scended from  it  into  some  worldly  thought,  he  seemed  to  the 
angels  to  fall  away  from  them,  or  to  be  lost  in  a  cloud.  What 
became  of  his  former  notions  in  regard  to  the  Trinity  we  find 
told  in  The  True  Christian  Religion:  — 

"Awaking  on  a  time  from  sleep,  I  fell  into  profound  medi- 
tation about  God ;  and  when  I  raised  my  eyes,  I  saw  above 
me  in  heaven  a  brilliant  white  light  in  an  oval  form.  As  I 
gazed  intently  within  it,  the  light  receded  towards  the  sides 
and  passed  into  the  circumference.  And  lo  !  heaven  was  then 
opened  to  me,  and  I  saw  magnificent  things,  and  angels 
standing  in  the  form  of  a  circle  on  the  southern  side  of  the 
opening.  They  were  conversing  together ;  and  because  I  was 
seized  with  a  desire  of  hearing  what  they  said,  it  was  given 
me  to  hear  first  the  sound  of  their  speech,  which  was  full 
of  heavenly  love,  and  then  the  speech  itself,  which  was  full 
of  wisdom  from  that  love.  They  were  conversing  about 
the  One  God,  and  about  conjunction  with  Him  and  salvation 
thereby.  They  spoke  things  ineffable,  which  for  the  most 
part  cannot  fall  into  the  words  of  any  natural  language.  But 
as  I  had  sometimes  been  in  company  with  angels  in  that 
heaven,  and  then  in  similar  speech,  because  in  similar  state, 
I  could  now  understand  them,  and  from  their  conversation 
catch  some  things  which  may  be  rationally  expressed  in  the 
words  of  natural  speech. 


ANGELIC   IDEA  OF  GOD.  257 

"They  said  that  the  Divine  Esse  is  One,  the  Same,  the  It- 
self, and  Indivisible.  This  they  illustrated  by  spiritual  ideas, 
saying  that  the  Divine  Esse  cannot  fall  into  several,  to  each 
of  which  is  the  Divine  Esse,  and  yet  the  Esse  be  One,  the 
Same,  the  Itself,  and  Indivisible  \  for  should  each  one  think 
from  his  own  Esse  from  himself,  and  singly  by  himself,  and 
at  the  same  time  also  from  the  others  and  by  the  others 
unanimously,  there  would  be  several  unanimous  Gods,  and 
not  One  God.  For  unanimity,  since  it  is  consent  of  several 
and  at  the  same  time  of  each  from  himself  and  by  himself, 
does  not  consist  with  the  unity  of  God,  but  with  plurality, — 
they  did  not  say,  of  Gods,  because  they  could  not :  the  light 
of  heaven,  from  which  was  their  thought,  and  the  aura  in 
which  their  speech  went  forth,  resisted.  They  said,  too,  that 
when  they  wished  to  utter  Gods,  and  each  one  as  a  person 
by  Himself,  the  effort  of  utterance  fell  immediately  into  One, 
nay,  into  the  Only  God.  And  they  added  that  the  Divine 
Esse  is  the  Divine  Esse  in  itself,  not  from  itself;  because 
from  itself  supposes  the  Esse  in  itself  from  another  prior, — • 
thus  supposes  God  to  be  from  a  God,  which  is  not  possible. 
What  is  from  God  is  not  called  God,  but  is  called  Divine. 
For  what  is  'God  from  God,'  and  so  what  is  'God  born 
from  God  from  eternity,'  what  is  'God  proceeding  from  God 
through  God  born  from  eternity,'  but  mere  words  in  which 
is  nothing  of  light  from  heaven? 

"They  said  further  that  the  Divine  Esse,  which  in  itself  is 
God,  is  the  Same ;  not  the  same  simple,  but  infinite, — that 
is,  the  same  from  eternity  to  eternity.  It  is  the  same  every- 
where, the  same  with  every  one  and  in  every  one,  all  variation 
and  change  being  in  the  recipient,  caused  by  his  state.  That 
the  Divine  Esse,  which  is  in  itself  God,  is  the  Itself,  they 
illustrated  in  this  way  :  God  is  the  Itself  because  He  is  love 
itself  and  wisdom  itself,  or  because  He  is  good  itself  and 
truth  itself,  and  thence  life  itself.  Unless  these  were  the 
Itself  in  God,  they  would  not  be  anything  in  heaven  and  the 
world,  because  there  would  not  be  anything  of  them  relative 


258  OPENING  OF  THE  SCRIPTURES. 

to  the  Itself.  Every  quality  derives  its  quality  from  this,  that 
there  is  an  Itself  from  which  it  is,  and  to  which  it  refers  itself 
that  it  may  be  what  it  is. 

"This  Itself  which  is  the  Divine  Esse  is  not  in  place,  but 
with  those  and  in  those  who  are  in  place,  according  to  their 
reception ;  since  neither  of  love  and  wisdom,  nor  of  good  and 
truth  and  life  thence,  which  are  the  Itself  in  God,  nor  of  God 
Himself,  can  place  be  predicated,  nor  progression  from  place 
to  place  :  whence  is  omnipresence.  Wherefore  the  Lord  says 
that  He  is  in  the  midst  of  His  disciples,  that  He  is  in  them, 
and  they  in  Him.  But  because  He  cannot  be  received  by 
any  one  such  as  He  is  in  Himself,  He  appears  such  as  He  is 
in  His  essence,  as  the  Sun  above  the  angelic  heavens,  pro- 
ceeding from  which  as  light  is  Himself  as  to  wisdom,  and  as 
heat  Himself  as  to  love.  He  Himself  is  not  that  Sun;  but 
the  Divine  love  and  Divine  wisdom  going  forth  immediately 
from  Himself,  round  about  Him,  appear  before  the  angels  as 
the  Sun.  He  Himself  in  the  Sun  is  Man,  is  OUR  LORD 
JESUS  CHRIST,  BOTH  AS  TO  THE  DIVINE  FROM  WHICH  HE  is 
AND  AS  TO  THE  DIVINE  HUMAN  ;  since  the  Itself,  which  is 
love  itself  and  wisdom  itself,  was  His  soul  from  the  Father, 
thus  the  Divine  Life,  which  is  Life  in  itself.  It  is  otherwise 
with  a  man,  in  whom  the  soul  is  not  Life,  but  a  recipient 
of  life. 

"This  the  Lord  teaches,  when  He  says,  'I  am  the  way, 
the  truth,  and  the  LIFE  ; '  and  again,  'As  the  Father  hath  LIFE 
IN  HIMSELF,  so  also  He  hath  given  to  the  Son  TO  HAVE  LIFE 
IN  HIMSELF'  (John  v.  26).  LIFE  IN  HIMSELF  is  God.  To 
these  things  they  added  that  those  who  are  in  any  spiritual 
light  can  hence  perceive  that  the  Divine  Esse,  since  it  is  One, 
the  Same,  the  Itself,  and  thence  Indivisible,  cannot  be  given 
in  several ;  and  that  if  it  should  be  said  to  be  given,  there 
would  be  manifest  contradictions  in  the  appellations. 

"While  I  listened  to  these  things  the  angels  perceived  in 
my  thought  the  common  ideas  of  the  Christian  Church  about 
a  trinity  of  persons  in  unity,  and  their  unity  in  trinity,  in  re- 


ANGELIC   IDEA    OF    THE   LORD. 


259 


gard  to  God ;  as  also  about  the  birth  of  the  Son  of  God  from 
eternity.  And  then  they  said,  'What  are  you  thinking?  Are 
you  not  thinking  from  natural  light,  with  which  our  spiritual 
light  does  not  accord  ?  Unless,  then,  you  put  away  the  ideas 
of  such  thought,  we  must  close  heaven  to  you  and  go  away." 
But  I  replied,  '  Enter,  I  pray,  more  deeply  into  my  thought, 
and  perhaps  you  will  see  an  accordance.'  And  they  did  so, 
and  saw  that  by  three  persons  I  understood  three  Divine 
proceeding  attributes,  which  are  creation,  redemption,  and 
regeneration,  and  that  these  attributes  are  of  the  One  God ; 
that  by  the  birth  of  the  Son  of  God  from  eternity,  I  under- 
stood His  birth  foreseen  from  eternity  and  provided  in  time ; 
that  it  is  not  above,  but  contrary  to  what  is  natural  and 
rational  to  think  that  a  Son  was  born  from  God  from  eternity  : 
on  the  other  hand,  that  the  Son  born  from  God  by  the  virgin 
Mary  in  time  is  the  Only  Son  of  God,  and  the  Only-begotten ; 
and  that  to  believe  otherwise  is  a  huge  error.  And  then  I 
told  them  that  my  natural  thought  about  the  trinity  and  unity 
of  persons,  and  about  the  birth  of  the  Son  of  God  from 
eternity,  I  had  from  the  doctrine  of  faith  of  the  Church, 
which  has  its  name  from  Athanasius. 

"  Then  the  angels  said,  '  It  is  well ; '  and  they  asked  me  to 
say  from  their  mouth,  that  if  any  one  does  not  go  to  the  Very 
God  of  heaven  and  earth,  he  cannot  come  into  heaven,  be- 
cause heaven  is  heaven  from  that  Only  God ;  and  that  God 
is  Jesus  Christ,  who  is  Jehovah  Lord,  from  eternity  Creator, 
in  time  Redeemer,  and  to  eternity  Regenerator ;  thus  who  is 
at  the  same  time  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit ;  and  that  this 
is  the  gospel  which  is  to  be  preached. 

"After  this,  the  heavenly  light  before  seen  over  the  opening 
returned  and  gradually  descended  and  filled  the  interiors  of 
my  mind  and  illuminated  my  ideas  of  the  trinity  and  unity 
of  God.  And  I  then  saw  my  preconceived  ideas,  which  had 
been  merely  natural,  separated  as  chaff  from  the  wheat  under 
the  winnowing-fan,  and  carried  off  as  by  the  wind  to  the 
north  of  heaven  and  dispersed."  (T.  C.  R.  25,  26.) 


26O  OPENING  OF  THE  SCRIPTURES. 

There  is  great  satisfaction  in  learning  thus  circumstantially 
by  what  means  Swedenborg's  early  ideas  of  tri-personality 
were  finally  dissipated.  Never  extreme,  we  have  seen  them 
little  by  little  losing  their  hold  and  giving  way  to  true,  rational, 
spiritual  ideas.  Now  at  last,  what  remained,  the  mere  husks 
of  thought,  are  gone  to  the  winds.  Unfortunately  we  cannot 
fix  the  date  of  the  vision.  This  account  was  first  printed  in 
1766,  in  The  Apocalypse  Revealed,  but  the  vision  was  given, 
no  doubt,  many  years  earlier. 

It  is  natural  to  suppose  that  such  purification  of  thought 
as  is  here  described,  such  assimilation  to  the  thought  of  the 
angelic  society  with  which  communication  was  opened,  might 
introduce  Swedenborg  into  permanent  association  with  its 
members.  With  our  interest  in  the  man,  we  can  hardly  help 
wanting  to  follow  on  and  learn  more  of  the  intercourse  that 
had  this  pleasant  beginning,  in  its  personal  aspects.  But 
such  wishes  are  vain,  and  find  no  response  from  Sweden- 
borg. Not  one  word  is  said  of  himself  in  all  his  theological 
and  spiritual  works  which  is  not  necessary  to  the  presenta- 
tion of  his  subject-matter.  This  exclusion  of  himself,  more- 
over, has  no  appearance  of  being  labored ;  it  js  the  simple 
result  of  entire  pre-occupation  with  greater  themes,  with 
Divinely  given  instruction  for  generations  to  come,  perforce 
excluding  all  merely  individual  interests. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

ASSESSORSHIP. — THE   ARCANA.  —  THE   APOCALYPSE. 

WE  have  followed  Swedenborg  in  his  spiritual  experience 
to  the  last  of  January,  1 748.  We  must  recur  to  an  earlier 
date,  in  order  to  keep  equally  informed  of  his  worldly  affairs. 
Arriving  in  London  from  Amsterdam,  May  1 7,  1 744,  he  was 
still  there  in  April,  1745,  going  on  with  The  Animal  King- 
dom, and  publishing  The  Worship  and  Love  of  God,  when, 
after  sixteen  months  of  such  trial  and  preparation  as  we  have 
seen,  he  learned  that  his  appointed  work  was  the  unfolding 
of  the  Word  of  God.  It  was  in  London  that  he  began  his 
task,  remaining  there  till  August,  when  he  returned  home  and 
resumed  his  attendance  at  the  College  of  Mines.  To  the 
duties  of  his  assessorship  he  continued  to  give  attention  till 
June,  1747,  when  the  College  recommended  him  to  King 
Frederic  for  promotion  to  the  place  of  Councillor.  But  Swe- 
denborg, instead  of  joining  in  the  request,  wrote  to  the  King 
that  he  felt  it  incumbent  on  him  to  finish  the  work  on  which 
he  was  then  engaged,  and  begged  that  the  place  might  be 
filled  by  another,  and  he  himself  released  from  office.  As  a 
further  favor,  in  consideration  of  his  thirty  years'  service  in 
the  College,  and  of  the  numerous  journeys  he  had  taken  and 
books  he  had  published  at  his  own  expense  for  the  public 
benefit,  he  requested  that  he  might  be  allowed  to  continue  to 
draw  his  half-salary  in  the  future,  as  he  had  in  the  past  when 
absent  from  Sweden,  with  leave  to  go  abroad  to  complete  his 
undertakings, — at  the  same  time  begging  that  no  higher  rank 
should  be  bestowed  on  him. 


262  ASSESSORSHIP. 

In  reply  to  these  requests  King  Frederic  wrote,  under  date 
of  June  12,  1747*— 

"  Although  we  would  gladly  see  him  continue  at  home  the 
faithful  services  he  has  hitherto  rendered  to  us  and  to  his 
country,  still  we  can  so  much  the  less  oppose  his  wish  as  we 
feel  sufficiently  assured  that  the  above-named  work  on  which 
he  is  engaged  will  in  time  contribute  to  the  general  use  and 
benefit,  not  less  than  the  other  valuable  works  written  and  pub- 
lished by  him  have  contributed  to  the  use  and  honor  of  his 
country,  as  well  as  of  himself.  We  therefore  decree,  and  by 
this  open  letter  release  Emanuel  Swedenborg  from  the  office 
of  Assessor  in  our  and  the  country's  College  of  Mines,  which 
he  has  hitherto  filled  with  renown ;  and  as  a  token  of  the 
satisfaction  with  which  we  look  upon  his  long  and  faithful 
services,  we  also  most  graciously  permit  him  to  retain  for  the 
rest  of  his  life  the  half  of  his  salary  as  an  Assessor." 

The  official  record  of  the  conclusion  of  Swedenborg's  ser- 
vices in  the  College  is  simple  and  honorable  to  all :  — 

"June  15.  Assessor  Emanuel  Swedenborg  handed  in  to 
the  College  of  Mines  the  Royal  Decree  by  which  he  was  re- 
leased from  his  duties  here  in  the  Royal  College,  retaining 
during  his  life  half  of  his  salary  as  an  Assessor. 

"  All  the  members  of  the  Royal  College  regretted  losing  so 
worthy  a  colleague,  and  they  asked  the  Assessor  to  kindly 
continue  attending  the  sessions  of  the  College  until  all  those 
cases  should  be  adjudicated  that  had  been  commenced  dur- 
ing his  attendance  at  the  College,  to  which  the  Assessor 
kindly  assented. 

"July  1 7.  Assessor  Swedenborg,  who  intends  as  soon  as 
possible  to  commence  his  new  journeys  abroad,  came  up  for 
the  purpose  of  taking  leave  of  the  Royal  College.  He  thanked 
all  those  at  the  Royal  College  for  the  favor  and  kindness  he 
had  received  from  them  during  his  connection  with  the  Col- 
lege, and  commended  himself  to  their  further  kindly  remem- 
brances. 

"The  Royal  College  thanked  the  Assessor  for  the  minute 


MEANS   OF   LIVING.  263 

care  and  fidelity  with  which  he  had  attended  to  the  duties  of 
his  office  as  an  Assessor  up  to  the  present  time ;  they  wished 
him  a  prosperous  journey  and  a  happy  return  ;  after  which 
he  left." 

The  half  salary,  six  hundred  dalers  in  silver,  or  one  hun- 
dred and  twelve  dollars,  thus  kindly  continued  to  Swedenborg 
by  way  of  pension  for  past  services  and  assistance  in  the  work 
now  in  hand,  is  of  interest  to  us  as  having  supplied  an  essen- 
tial part  of  the  means  by  which  he  was  enabled  to  prosecute 
his  labors  at  ease  and  to  publish  his  explications  of  Scripture. 
Though  he  lived  modestly  and  simply  in  his  own  quiet  home 
at  Stockholm,  or  at  his  lodgings  in  London,  for  which  he  paid 
about  six  shillings  a  week,  his  private  income  would  have 
proved  insufficient  for  what  he  had  to  do.1  It  is  a  pleasant 
fact  that  his  new  labors,  undertaken  in  the  Divine  service, 
were  sustained  by  the  public  funds  of  his  country.  How 
essential  it  was  in  this  service  that  he  should  be  relieved  from 
worldly  care,  we  may  judge,  not  only  from  what  we  have 
already  quoted  from  the  Economy  of  the  Animal  Kingdom? 
but  more  definitely  from  these  passages  in  his  "  Diary"  :  — 

"I  have  learned  by  experience,  that  when  I  was  being 
led  hither  and  thither  in  the  heavens,  did  I  slip  into  thoughts 
of  worldly  affairs,  then  what  I  perceived  in  the  heavenly 
abode  at  once  disappeared ;  and  so  I  learned  that  those 
who  let  down  their  thoughts  into  the  world,  slip  down  out 
of  heaven."  (S.  D.  304.) 

"  When  I  have  been  intensely  engaged  in  worldly  thoughts, 
as  when  I  was  anxious  about  the  needful  money,  and  to-day 
while  I  wrote  a  letter,  my  mind  being  detained  in  these  things 
for  some  little  time,  I  fell  then  into  a  corporeal  state,  as  it 

1  From  a  statement  preserved  in  the  Royal  Library  at  Stockholm',  it  appears 
that  Swedenborg  had  loaned  at  interest  in  1 765  the  sum  of  sixty  thousand  dalers 
in  copper,  —  less  than  four  thousand  dollars  in  American  currency,  yielding 
about  two   hundred  and  thirty  dollars  income.     But  the  state  of  exchange 
was  such  that  he  could  not  draw  in  London  more  than  half  or  two-thirds 
this  amount. 

2  See  pp.  150-160. 


264  THE  ARCANA. 

were,  so  that  spirits  could  not  speak  with  me,  and  were  seem- 
ingly absent."  (S.  D.  1166.) 

"Whenever  I  thought  about  my  little  garden,  about  the 
one  who  has  the  care  of  it,  about  expecting  to  be  called 
home,  about  money,  about  the  disposition  of  my  acquaint- 
ances, or  those  who  were  in  the  house,  about  what  was  to  be 
written,  how  it  would  be  received  by  men,  whether  it  would 
be  understood,  about  new  garments  to  be  bought,  and  many 
such  things, — when  I  was  kept  in  such  reflection  long,  spirits 
brought  in  unsuitable,  troublesome,  wrong  ideas,  increasing 
my  anxieties ;  but  it  was  observed  that  when  I  was  kept  out 
of  such  thoughts  for  months  and  years,  I  had  no  care  and 
they  brought  no  trouble."  (S.  D.  3624.) 

From  several  minor  circumstances  the  Rev.  R.  L.  Tafel 
concludes  that  Swedenborg  now  went  to  Holland  and  re- 
mained there  for  more  than  a  year,  busily  engaged  in  com- 
pleting the  "Biblical  Index,"  in  noting  his  spiritual  experi- 
ences, of  which  during  this  time  we  have  nearly  a  thousand 
printed  pages,  and  in  writing  the  first  volume  of  the  Arcana 
C&lestia. 

The  Arcana  Ccelestia,  to  which  we  have  already  several 
times  alluded,  was  published  in  eight  large  quarto  volumes, 
which  later  octavo  editions  have  increased,  with  the  index, 
to  thirteen.  The  first  volume  was  printed  for  the  author  in 
London  in  1 748  and  1 749,  bearing  the  imprint  of  the  latter 
year,  and  the  last  volume  in  1756.  John  Lewis,  the  publisher, 
in  advertising  the  second  volume,  in  1750,  says, — 

"Though  the  author  of  the  Arcana  Cxlestia  is  undoubtedly 
a  very  learned  and  great  man,  and  his  works  highly  esteemed 
by  the  literati,  yet  he  is  no  less  distinguished  for  his  modesty 
than  his  great  talents,  so  that  he  will  not  suffer  his  name  to 
be  made  public.  But  though  I  am  positively  forbid  to  dis- 
cover that,  yet  I  hope  he  will  excuse  me  if  I  venture  to  men- 
tion his  benign  and  generous  qualities.  How  he  bestowed 
his  time  and  labors  in  former  years  I  am  not  certainly  in- 
formed, though  I  have  heard  by  those  who  have  been  long 


PUBLICATION.  265 

acquainted  with  him  that  they  were  employed  in  the  same 
manner  as  I  am  going  to  relate ;  but  what  I  have  been  an 
eye-witness  to,  I  can  declare  with  certain  truth ;  and  there- 
fore I  do  aver  that  this  gentleman,  with  indefatigable  pains 
and  labor,  spent  one  whole  year  in  studying  and  writing  the 
first  volume  of  the  Arcana  Ccelestia,  was  at  the  expense  of 
two  hundred  pounds  to  print  it,  and  also  advanced  two  hun- 
dred pounds  more  for  the  printing  of  this  second  volume  ; 
and  when  he  had  done  this,  he  gave  express  orders  that  all 
the  money  that  should  arise  in  the  sale  of  this  large  work 
should  be  given  towards  the  charge  of  the  propagation  of 
the  Gospel.  He  is  so  far  from  desiring  to  make  a  gain  of 
his  labors,  that  he  will  not  receive  one  farthing  back  of  the 
four  hundred  pounds  he  has  expended ;  and  for  that  reason 
his  works  will  come  exceedingly  cheap  to  the  public.". 

The  "Arcana"  was  the  first  work  that  Swedenborg  had 
felt  authorized  to  prepare  for  the  press  and  issue  to  the  pub- 
lic in  pursuance  of  his  mission.  To  this  mission  his  life  and 
all  that  he  had  were  now  wholly  devoted,  with  no  desire  for 
return  to  himself  of  either  profit  or  renown.  Little  in  fact  of 
either  was  likely  to  accrue  to  him  in  his  own  generation.  The 
second  volume  was  issued  in  six  parts,  both  in  Latin  and  in 
English,  the  translation  being  made  by  Mr.  John  Merchant. 
And  though  they  were,  as  John  Lewis  says,  unaccountably 
cheap  (eight-pence  each),  we  find  Swedenborg  noting  in  his 
"Diary"  (n.  4422),  what  he  learned  from  letters,  that  not 
more  than  four  copies  had  been  sold  within  two  months.  The 
angels  with  him  wondered  at  this;  but  the  wonder  ceased 
when,  on  being  remitted  into  the  state  of  thought  in  which 
they  had  been  in  the  world,  they  found  themselves  rejecting 
these  same  writings.  Thus  he  learned  how  little  prepared 
the  world  was  for  what  he  had  to  teach.  But  he  was  not  dis- 
couraged, for  he  felt  that  the  work  was  not  his  own.  Even 
before  the  first  volume  was  published,  it  was  given  him  to 
perceive  that  there  would  be  five  different  ways  in  which  his 
writings  would  be  received  :  First,  there  would  be  those  who 


266  THE  ARCANA. 

would  wholly  reject  them,  because  of  being  in  a  different  per- 
suasion. Second,  those  who  would  receive  them  as  matters 
of  learning,  and  be  delighted  with  them  as  matters  of  curiosity. 
Third,  those  who  would  receive  them  intellectually  and  readily 
enough,  but  would  still  remain  in  the  same  life  as  before. 
Fourth,  those  who  would  receive  with  persuasion  and  let  the 
doctrines  penetrate  and  affect  their  lives  in  certain  states  and 
accomplish  some  use.  Fifth,  those  who  would  receive  with 
joy,  and  become  established  in  them.  (S.  D.  2955.)  How 
small  this  fifth  class  remains  even  to  this  day  is  no  matter  of 
surprise  to  those  who  realize  what  a  vast  change  of  life  is 
necessary  before  we  find  our  heart's  delight  in  being  brought 
into  the  presence  of  our  Lord,  in  His  Word. 

The  Arcana  C&lestia  being  the  first  book  that  Svvedenborg 
published  after  his  internal  sight  was  opened  and  in  obedience 
to  the  Divine  command,  its  opening  sentences  have  on  that 
account  a  peculiar  interest :  — 

"  I.  That  the  Word  of  the  Old  Testament  contains  arcana 
of  heaven,  and  that  all  and  each  of  the  things  therein  regard 
the  Lord,  His  heaven,  the  Church,  faith,  and  the  things  which 
are  of  faith,  no  mortal  apprehends  from  the  letter ;  for,  from 
the  letter  or  the  sense  of  the  letter  no  one  sees  anything  else 
than  that  they  regard  in  general  the  external  things  of  the 
Jewish  Church ;  when  yet  there  are  everywhere  internal  things 
which  are  nowhere  manifest  in  the  external,  except  a  very  few 
which  the  Lord  revealed  and  explained  to  the  Apostles ;  as, 
that  sacrifices  signify  the  Lord,  that  the  land  of  Canaan  and 
Jerusalem  signify  heaven,  whence  Canaan  and  Jerusalem  are 
called  heavenly  and  Paradise. 

"II.  But  that  all  things  and  each,  yea  the  most  particular, 
even  to  the  least  jot,  signify  and  involve  spiritual  and  heavenly 
things,  the  Christian  world  is  hitherto  profoundly  ignorant, 
and  so  it  has  little  regard  for  the  Old  Testament.  Yet  the 
truth  might  be  known  merely  from  this,  that  the  Word,  be- 
cause it  is  the  Lord's  and  from  the  Lord,  could  in  no  wise 
be  given  without  containing  interiorly  such  things  as  are  of 


THE   NATURE  OF  THE   WORD.  267 

heaven,  of  the  Church,  and  of  faith ;  not  otherwise  could  it 
be  called  the  Word  of  the  Lord,  nor  could  it  be  said  that 
there  is  any  life  in  it;  for  whence  is  its  life,  unless  from 
those  things  which  are  of  life  ?  that  is,  unless  from  this,  that 
all  and  each  of  the  things  in  it  have  reference  to  the  Lord, 
who  is  the  very  Life  itself?  Wherefore  whatsoever  does  not 
interiorly  regard  Him,  does  not  live ;  nay,  whatever  expres- 
sion in  the  Word  does  not  involve  Him,  or  in  its  own  manner 
relate  to  Him,  is  not  Divine. 

"  III.  Without  such  life  the  Wprd,  as  to  the  letter,  is  dead ; 
for  it  is  with  the  Word  as  with  man,  who,  as  is  known  in  the 
Christian  world,  is  external  and  internal ;  the  external  man 
separate  from  the  internal  is  the  body,  and  thus  dead ;  but 
the  internal  is  what  lives  and  gives  to  the  external  to  live. 
The  internal  man  is  the  soul.  Thus  the  Word,  as  to  the 
letter  alone,  is  as  the  body  without  the  soul. 

"  IV.  From  the  sense  of  the  letter  alone,  when  the  mind  is 
fixed  in  it,  it  can  in  no  wise  be  seen  that  it  contains  such 
things ;  as  in  this  first  part  of  Genesis,  from  the  sense  of 
the  letter  nothing  else  is  known  than  that  it  treats  of  the 
creation  of  the  world  and  of  the  Garden  of  Eden,  which 
is  called  Paradise ;  also  of  Adam  as  the  first  created  man : 
who  imagines  anything  more  ?  But  that  these  things  contain 
arcana  which  have  never  hitherto  been  revealed,  will  be  suffi- 
ciently evident  from  what  follows ;  and  indeed  that  the  first 
chapter  of  Genesis,  in  the  internal  sense,  treats  of  the  NEW 
CREATION  of  man,  or  of  his  REGENERATION,  in  general,  and 
of  the  Most  Ancient  Church  in  particular ;  and  indeed  in 
such  manner  that  there  is  not  the  least  particle  of  an  ex- 
pression that  does  not  represent,  signify,  and  involve  these 
things. 

"  V.  But  that  such  is  the  case  no  mortal  can  ever  know, 
unless  from  the  Lord.  For  this  reason  it  is  permitted  to 
state  at  the  outset  that  of  the  Lord's  mercy  it  has  been 
granted  me  now  for  several  years  to  be  constantly  and  con- 
tinuously in  the  company  of  spirits  and  angels,  to  hear  them 


268  THE  ARCANA. 

speaking,  and  in  turn  to  speak  with  them ;  hence  it  has  been 
given  me  to  hear  and  see  astonishing  things  which  are  in  the 
other  life,  which  have  never  come  to  the  knowledge  of  any 
man,  nor  into  his  idea.  I  have  there  been  instructed  con- 
cerning different  kinds  of  spirits ;  concerning  the  state  of 
souls  after  death;  concerning  hell,  or  the  lamentable  state 
of  the  unfaithful ;  concerning  heaven,  or  the  most  happy 
state  of  the  faithful,  especially  concerning  the  doctrine  of 
faith  which  is  acknowledged  in  the  whole  heaven ;  on  which 
subjects,  by  the  Divine  mercy  of  the  Lord,  many  things  will 
be  said  in  the  following  pages." 

Following  this  introduction,  Swedenborg  prints  the  whole 
of  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  in  Latin.  Then  he  gives  a 
summary  of  the  contents  of  the  chapter  in  the  internal  sense, 
as  follows :  — 

"The  six  days,  or  times,  which  are  so  many  successive 
states  of  man's  regeneration,  are  in  general  as  follows  :  — 

"  The  first  state  is  that  which  precedes,  both  from  infancy 
and  immediately  before  regeneration,  and  is  called  a  void, 
emptiness,  and  thick  darkness.  And  the  first  movement, 
which  is  the  mercy  of  the  Lord,  is  the  spirit  of  God  moving 
itself  upon  the  faces  of  the  waters. 

"The  second  state  is  when  distinction  is  made  between  the 
things  which  are  the  Lord's  and  those  which  are  man's  own ; 
those  which  are  the  Lord's  are  called  in  the  Word  '  remains,' 
and  are  here  especially  the  knowledges  of  faith  which  man 
has  acquired  from  infancy,  which  are  stored  up  and  are  not 
manifest  before  he  comes  into  this  state.  This  state  seldom 
exists  at  the  present  day  without  temptation,  misfortune, 
or  grief,  which  cause  the  things  of  the  body  and  the  world, 
or  his  own,  to  become  quiet  and,  as  it  were,  to  die.  Thus 
the  things  of  the  external  man  are  separated  from  those 
of  the  internal :  in  the  internal  are  the  remains  stored  up 
by  the  Lord  for  this  time  and  this  use. 

"  The  third  state  is  that  of  repentance,  in  which  from  the 
internal  man  he  speaks  piously  and  devoutly,  and  brings  forth 


THE   SIX   DAYS.  269 

good  things,  as  the  works  of  charity,  but  which  are  neverthe- 
less inanimate  because  he  regards  them  as  from  himself. 
These  are  called  the  tender  grass,  then  the  herb  yielding 
seed,  and  afterwards  the  tree  yielding  fruit. 

"  The  fourth  state  is  when  he  is  affected  by  love  and  illu- 
mined by  faith ;  he  before  indeed  spoke  pious  things  and 
brought  forth  good  things,  but  from  a  state  of  temptation 
and  distress,  not  from  faith  and  charity.  These  therefore, 
love  and  faith,  are  now  enkindled  in  the  internal  man,  and 
are  called  the  two  great  lights. 

"The  fifth  state  is,  that  he  speaks  from  faith,  and  thereby 
confirms  himself  in  truth  and  good  ;  the  things  which  he  then 
brings  forth  are  animate,  and  are  called  the  fishes  of  the  sea 
and  the  birds  of  the  heavens. 

"The  sixth  state  is,  when  from  faith  and  thence  from  love 
he  speaks  true  things  and  does  good  things  ;  the  things  which 
he  then  brings  forth  are  called  the  living  soul  and  creature. 
And  because  he  then  begins  to  act  from  love,  also,  as  well  as 
from  faith,  he  becomes  a  spiritual  man,  which  is  called  an 
image  of  God.  His  spiritual  life  is  delighted  and  sustained 
by  the  things  that  are  of  the  knowledges  of  faith  and  of  the 
works  of  charity,  which  are  called  his  food ;  and  his  natural 
life  is  delighted  and  sustained  by  the  things  that  are  of  the 
body  and  the  senses ;  from  which  there  is  a  combat  until 
love  reigns  and  he  becomes  a  celestial  man. 

"They  who  are  regenerated  do  not  all  arrive  at  this  state, 
but  some,  and  the  greatest  part  at  this  day,  only  to  the  first ; 
some  only  to  the  second ;  some  to  the  third,  the  fourth,  and 
the  fifth ;  few  to  the  sixth,  and  scarcely  any  to  the  seventh." 

The  seventh  state,  here  but  alluded  to,  is  described  in  the 
next  chapter,  in  the  explanation  of  the  seventh  day.  After 
this  summary  of  the  contents  of  the  first  chapter,  he  begins 
with  the  particular  unfolding  of  the  internal  sense,  verse  by 
verse,  clause  by  clause,  premising  that, — 

"  In  the  following  pages  by  the  LORD  is  meant  solely  the 
Saviour  of  the  world,  Jesus  Christ;  and  He  is  called  Lord 


2/O  THE  ARCANA. 

without  the  other  names.  He  is  acknowledged  and  adored 
as  Lord  in  the  entire  heaven,  because  He  has  all  power  in 
the  heavens  and  in  the  earth.  He  commanded  also  saying, 
'  Ye  call  Me  Lord,  and  ye  say  rightly,  for  I  am '  (John  xiii. 
13).  And  after  the  resurrection  the  disciples  called  Him 
Lord. 

"  Through  the  whole  heaven  they  know  no  other  Father 
than  the  Lord,  because  they  are  One,  as  He  said :  '  I  am  the 
way,  the  truth,  and  the  life.'  Philip  saith,  '  Show  us  the 
Father.'  Jesus  saith  to  him,  'Am  I  so  long  time  with  you, 
and  yet  hast  thou  not  known  Me,  Philip?  He  that  hath 
seen  Me  hath  seen  the  Father :  how  sayest  thou  then,  show 
us  the  Father?  Believest  thou  not  that  I  am  in  the  Father 
and  the  Father  in  Me  ?  Believe  Me  that  I  am  in  the  Father 
and  the  Father  in  Me'  (John  xiv.  6-n)." 

Twenty-six  octavo  pages  are  given  to  the  explication  of 
this  first  chapter,  and  then  our  author  says,— 

"  This  then  is  the  internal  sense  of  the  Word,  its  very  life, 
which  does  not  at  all  appear  from  the  sense  of  the  letter ; 
but  the  arcana  are  so  many  that  volumes  would  not  be  suffi- 
cient for  unfolding  them.  Here  only  a  very  few  are  declared, 
and  such  as  may  prove  that  regeneration  is  here  treated  of, 
and  that  this  proceeds  from  the  external  man  to  the  internal. 
Thus  the  angels  understand  the  Word.  They  know  nothing 
at  all  which  is  of  the  letter,  not  even  one  word,  what  it  prox- 
imately  signifies,  still  less  the  names  of  countries,  cities,  rivers, 
and  persons,  which  occur  so  frequently  in  the  historical  and 
prophetical  parts.  They  have  only  an  idea  of  the  things  sig- 
nified by  words  and  names ;  as,  by  Adam  in  Paradise  they 
have  a  perception  of  the  Most  Ancient  Church,  and  not  of 
the  Church  itself,  but  of  the  faith  towards  the  Lord  of  that 
Church ;  by  Noah,  the  Church  remaining  with  posterity  and 
continued  to  the  time  of  Abram ;  by  Abraham,  not  the  man 
who  lived,  but  the  saving  faith  which  he  represented ;  and  so 
on.  Thus  they  perceive  things  spiritual  and  celestial,  alto- 
gether abstracted  from  words  and  names." 


THE  FORM   OF   HEAVEN.  2/1 

In  this  manner  the  work  is  continued,  in  its  twelve  vol- 
umes, through  Genesis  and  Exodus,  with  a  few  illustrative 
pages  at  the  end  of  chapters,  from  the  author's  spiritual  ex- 
perience. At  the  close  of  the  fourth  volume  he  begins  a 
series  of  these  illustrative  intermediate  chapters  with  these 
words  :  — 

"  It  is  now  allowed  to  relate  and  describe  wonderful  things 
which,  so  far  as  I  know,  have  not  as  yet  been  known  to  any 
one,  nor  even  entered  into  the  mind  of  any  one, —  namely, 
that  the  entire  heaven  is  so  formed  as  to  correspond  to  the 
Lord,  to  His  Divine  Human ;  and  that  man  is  so  formed  as 
to  correspond  to  heaven  in  regard  to  all  and  each  of  the 
things  in  him,  and  by  heaven  to  the  Lord.  This  is  a  great 
arcanum  which  is  now  to  be  revealed,  and  of  which  we  shall 
treat  here  and  at  the  close  of  the  subsequent  chapters." 

This  subject  is  continued  through  three  volumes,  in  the 
course  of  which  the  correspondence  is  given  of  the  functions 
of  all  the  principal  parts  of  the  body,  with  the  analogous 
functions  in  the  spiritual  man,  and  some  account  given  of 
the  angels  or  spirits  who  are  the  seat  of  these  functions  and 
thus  occupy  the  corresponding  regions  of  the  Greatest  Man, 
that  is,  of  heaven.  Only  long  experience  of  thought  in 
accordance  with  this  sublime  truth  can  bear  witness  to  the 
boon  of  its  revelation ;  and  the  longer  and  more  enlightened 
the  experience,  the  higher  becomes  the  appreciation. 

The  intermediate  portions  of  the  eighth  volume  are  occu- 
pied with  the  connection  of  angels  and  spirits  with  men,  and 
of  the  soul  with  the  body,  and  those  of  the  four  succeeding 
volumes  with  an  account  of  the  spirits  and  inhabitants  of 
other  planets.  In  addition  to  what  is  thus  appended  to  the 
chapters,  through  several  of  the  volumes  some  introductory 
doctrinal  matter  is  prefixed  to  each  chapter.  From  this 
interpolated  material  Swedenborg  afterwards  published  sev- 
eral small  volumes,  with  some  changes  and  additions.  Much 
of  it  is  contained  in  the  work  on  Heaven  and  Hell,  and 
much  in  the  treatises  on  Influx  and  the  Intercourse  of  the 


THE  ARCANA. 

Soul  and  Body,  on  The  Earths  in  the  Universe,  on  The 
New  Jerusalem  and  its  Heavenly  Doctrine,  and  on  The 
White  Horse. 

The  style  of  the  "Arcana"  differs  materially  from  that  of 
the  earlier  Adversaria.  It  is  no  longer  that  of  an  explorer, 
just  discovering,  or  about  to  discover,  or  just  hearing  things 
entirely  new  to  him.  It  is  now  that  of  a  master,  full  to  over- 
flowing with  knowledge  that  had  become  familiar  to  him,  and 
'that  lay  broadly  and  clearly  under  his  view,  from  which  he 
had  only  to  choose  what  would  be  most  intelligible  and  most 
useful  to  his  readers.  He  no  longer  doubts  whether  what  he 
writes  is  quite  correct  and  is  to  be  printed.  It  is  apparent 
that  he  is  writing  and  printing  under  clearly  recognized  au- 
thority. Yet  the  careful  student  finds  some  minor  points, 
though  marvellously  few,  in  which  the  author's  later  experi- 
ence of  twenty  years  developed  additional  clearness  and 
slight  modification. 

An  entire  change  from  the  method  of  the  Adversaria 
appears  in  the  confirmation  of  almost  every  interpretation 
given,  by  reference  to  other  passages  containing  similar  words 
throughout  the  Scriptures.  For  this  Swedenborg  had  made 
extensive  preparation  in  the  studies  of  the  Adversaria,  and 
especially  in  his  "Biblical  Index,"  evidently  provided  for  this 
very  purpose.  The  same  course  was  afterwards  pursued  in 
the  explanation  of  the  Apocalypse,  at  much  greater  length 
and  with  fuller  explanation  of  the  confirmatory  passages 
cited  ;  from  which  it  comes  to  pass,  that  although  the  books 
of  Genesis,  Exodus,  and  the  Revelation  are  the  only  books 
of  the  Word  of  which  Swedenborg  published  a  special  ex- 
position, there  are  few  passages  in  the  entire  Scriptures  on 
which  his  works  do  not  throw  light,  either  directly  or  in- 
directly. 

The  Arcana  Ccelestia,  to  many  people,  is  not  easy  read- 
ing. How  can  the  deep,  interior  explanation,  verse  by  verse, 
of  Genesis  and  Exodus,  with  copious  citation,  be  read  with 
ease  ?  It  is  delightful  only  to  those  who  find  interior  delight 


THE   GOLDEN   AGE. 


273 


in  perceiving  the  whole  Word  of  the  Lord  to  be  full  of  His 
presence,  of  His  infinite  love  and  truth.  And  such,  experi- 
ence shows,  are  not  confined  to  theologians  or  to  men  of 
trained  intellect.  Quite  as  many,  and  quite  as  earnest,  they 
are  found  among  the  simple  in  heart, —  unpretending  women, 
and  innocent  youth.  To  such  there  is  abundant  beauty  and 
delight  in  passages  like  the  following,  explaining  and  illus- 
trating the  1 3th  verse  of  the  3ist  chapter  of  Exodus  :  — 

"'Speak  thou  to  the  sons  of  Israel,  saying,' — signifies  the 
information  of  those  who  are  of  the  Church  by  the  Word. 
Concerning  information  by  the  Word  something  shall  here 
be  said  :  in  the  most  ancient  times  men  were  informed  con- 
cerning heavenly  things,  or  those  which  relate  to  eternal  life, 
by  immediate  intercourse  with  the  angels  of  heaven  ;  for 
heaven  then  acted  as  one  with  the  men  of  the  Church,  inas- 
much as  it  flowed  in  through  the  internal  man  into  their  ex- 
ternal, whence  they  had  not  only  illustration  and  perception, 
but  also  discourse  with  the  angels.  This  time  was  called  the 
golden  age,  because  men  were  then  in  the  good  of  love  to 
the  Lord  ;  for  gold  signifies  that  good.  Those  things  are  also 
described  by  Paradise  in  the  Word.  Afterwards  information 
about  heavenly  things  and  those  which  relate  to  eternal  life, 
was  effected  by  what  are  called  correspondences  and  repre- 
sentations, the  knowledge  of  which  was  derived  from  the 
most  ancient  men,  who  had  immediate  intercourse  with  the 
angels  of  heaven.  Into  these  correspondences  and  represen- 
tations heaven  then  flowed  in  with  men,  and  gave  illustra- 
tion, for  these  are  the  external  forms  of  heavenly  things; 
and  in  proportion  as  men  at  that  time  were  in  the  good  of 
love  and  charity,  in  the  same  proportion  they  were  illus- 
trated, for  all  Divine  influence  out  of  heaven  is  into  the 
good  with  man,  and  by  good  into  truths ;  and  whereas  the 
man  of  the  Church  at  that  time  was  in  spiritual  good,  which 
good  in  its  essence  is  truth,  therefore  those  times  were  called 
the  silver  age,  for  silver  signifies  such  good.  But  when  the 
knowledge  of  correspondences  and  of  representations  was 

18 


2/4  THE  ARCANA. 

turned  into  magic,  that  Church  perished,  and  a  third  suc- 
ceeded, in  which  indeed  all  worship  was  effected  by  nearly 
similar  things,  but  still  it  was  unknown  what  they  signified. 
This  Church  was  instituted  with  the  Judaic  and  Israelitish 
nation.  But  whereas  information  about  heavenly  things,  or 
about  those  things  which  relate  to  eternal  life,  could  not  be 
effected  with  the  men  of  that  Church  by  influx  into  their  in- 
teriors, and  thus  by  illustration,  therefore  angels  from  heaven 
spake  by  a  living  voice  with  some  of  them,  and  instructed 
them  about  external  things,  but  little  about  internal  things, 
because  these  they  could  not  comprehend.  They  who  were 
in  natural  good  received  those  things  holily,  whence  those 
times  were  called  brazen,  for  brass  signifies  such  good. 
But  when  not  even  natural  good  remained  with  the  man  of 
the  Church,  the  Lord  came  into  the  world,  and  reduced  all 
things  in  the  heavens  and  in  the  hells  into  order, — to  the  end 
that  man  may  receive  influx  from  Him  out  of  heaven  and  be 
illustrated,  and  that  the  hells  might  not  be  any  hindrance  and 
let  in  thick  darkness :  then  a  fourth  Church  commenced, 
which  is  called  Christian.  In  this  Church  information  about 
heavenly  things,  or  about  the  things  which  relate  to  eternal 
life,  is  effected  solely  by  the  Word,  whereby  man  has  influx 
and  illustration ;  for  the  Word  was  written  by  mere  corres- 
pondences and  representations,  which  signify  heavenly  things, 
into  which  heavenly  things  the  angels  of  heaven  come,  when 
man  reads  the  Word :  hence  by  the  Word  is  effected  the 
conjunction  of  heaven  with  the  Church,  or  of  the  angels  of 
heaven  with  the  men  of  the  Church,  but  only  with  those 
there  who  are  in  the  good  of  love  and  charity.  But  whereas 
the  man  of  this  Church  has  extinguished  this  good  also, 
therefore  neither  can  he  be  informed  by  any  influx  and  by 
illustration  thence,  only  about  some  truths  which  are  not 
joined  with  good.  Hence  these  times  are  what  are  called 
iron,  for  iron  denotes  truth  in  the  ultimate  of  order;  but 
when  truth  is  of  such  a  quality,  then  it  is  such  as  is  described 
in  Daniel :  '  Whereas  thou  sawest  iron  mixed  with  miry  clay, 


RETURN   TO  STOCKHOLM.  275 

they  shall  mingle  themselves  with  the  seed  of  men ;  but  they 
shall  not  cleave  one  to  another,  even  as  iron  is  not  mixed 
with  clay'  (chap.  ii.  v.  43).  From  this  it  may  be  manifest 
in  what  manner  revelations  have  succeeded  from  the  most 
ancient  ages  to  the  present :  and  at  this  day  revelation  is 
only  given  by  the  Word ;  but  genuine  revelation  with  those 
who  are  in  the  love  of  truth  for  the  sake  of  truth,  and  not 
with  those  who  are  in  the  love  of  truth  for  the  sake  of  honor 
and  gain  as  ends.  For,  if  you  are  willing  to  believe  it,  the 
Lord  is  the  Word  itself,  since  the  Word  is  Divine  Truth; 
and  Divine  Truth  is  the  Lord  in  heaven,  because  from  the 
Lord.  Wherefore  they  who  love  Divine  Truth  for  the  sake 
of  Divine  Truth,  love  the  Lord;  and  with  those  who  love 
the  Lord,  heaven  flows  in  and  illustrates :  whereas  they 
who  love  Divine  Truth  for  the  sake  of  honor  and  gain  as 
ends,  avert  themselves  from  the  Lord  to  themselves  and  to 
the  world,  and  with  them  influx  and  illustration  cannot  be 
given.  These  also,  since  in  the  sense  of  the  letter  they  keep 
the  mind  fixed  in  themselves  and  in  their  own  fame  and 
glory,  apply  that  sense  to  such  things  as  favor  their  own 
loves."  (A.  €.10355.) 

In  the  spring  of  1750  Swedenborg  returned  again  to 
Stockholm,  having  spent  the  intervening  time  partly  in  Lon- 
don, but  mostly  in  Holland.  In  Stockholm  he  remained, 
tending  his  garden  and  busily  employed  on  the  "Arcana." 
About  once  a  year  he  sent  a  new  volume  to  his  publisher  in 
London,  till  the  last,  which  was  issued  in  1756.  We  hear  no 
more  of  him  at  the  College  of  Mines,  but  for  some  time  yet 
we  have  an  occasional  paper  presented  to  the  Diet.  A  paper 
of  much  importance  had  been  presented  by  him  in  1 734,  in 
opposition  to  a  party  plan  of  declaring  war  against  Russia, 
which  is  supposed  to  have  had  great  weight  in  maintaining 
peace  at  that  time.  A  fragment  of  a  memorial  addressed 
by  him  to  the  Diet  in  1755  urges  the  necessity  of  limiting 
the  distillation  of  whiskey,  "that  is,  if  the  consumption  of 


THE  DIET. 

whiskey  cannot  be  done  away  with  altogether,  which  would 
be  more  desirable  for  the  country's  welfare  and  morality  than 
all  the  income  which  could  be  realized  from  so  pernicious 
a  drink."  In  addition,  the  memorial  urges  a  recall  of  the 
power  granted  to  the  Bank  to  grant  loans  on  all  property  in 
the  country,  which  he  regarded  as  one  of  the  causes  of  the 
bankruptcy  into  which  it  was  drifting.  By  these  means 
Swedenborg  hoped  that  a  check  might  be  put  on  the  drain 
from  the  country,  as  shown  by  the  excess  of  imports  over 
exports,  and  the  balance  of  trade  be  restored  in  its  favor. 

In  1760,  to  anticipate  a  few  years  for  the  sake  of  con- 
tinuity of  subject,  the  financiers  of  Sweden  found  themselves 
unable  to  check  the  rapid  advance  of  foreign  exchange, 
whereby  a  Hamburg  rix-daler  had  risen  from  thirty-five  to 
seventy-five  marks.  Swedenborg  was  a  member  of  a  com- 
mittee of  the  Diet  on  Finance,  on  which  he  is  said  to  have 
had  great  influence.  A  memorial  is  preserved  that  he  pre- 
sented to  the  Diet  on  the  subject,  in  which  we  find  views 
acceptable  to  all  sound  financiers  at  the  present  day.  His 
argument  is  to  prove  the  necessity  of  curtailing  the  issue  by 
the  Bank,  of  loans  on  any  other  property  than  gold  and 
silver;  of  gradually  diminishing  the  amount  of  certificates 
of  indebtedness  that  had  been  issued  on  other  property,  by 
requiring  the  debtors  to  pay  each  year  a  certain  percentage 
of  their  debt  in  addition  to  the  interest ;  of  gradual  redemp- 
tion by  the  Bank  of  all  other  notes  than  those  payable  in 
coin ;  of  prohibiting  for  the  time  all  exportation  of  copper, 
and  requiring  the  Bank  to  hoard  it  in  anticipation  of  resump- 
tion ;  of  abolishing  the  monopoly  of  the  Iron-office ;  and 
finally  of  farming  out  the  distillation  of  whiskey,  as  a  means 
of  revenue,  if  the  consumption  of  the  pernicious  drink  can- 
not be  done  away  with  altogether. 

At  the  same  time  Swedenborg  addressed  a  memorial  to 
the  King  earnestly  protesting  against  the  exportation  of 
copper,  which  he  calls  the  foundation  and  main  stay  of  the 
restoration  of  specie  currency,  and  recommends  instead  that 


DEFENCE  OF  THE  GOVERNMENT. 


277 


for  a  certain  number  of  years  the  mining  companies  should 
be  allowed  to  coin  their  copper  into  "coin-plates,"  or  else 
that  the  Government  should  coin  it  for  them. 

Not  long  afterwards  Nordencrantz,  Councillor  of  Com- 
merce, who  had  been  the  chief  supporter  of  the  policy 
which  Swedenborg  opposed,  printed  and  referred  to  the 
Diet  a  book  on  Swedish  affairs,  taking  a  most  discouraging 
view  of  their  condition  and  of  the  Swedish  form  of  govern- 
ment, and  attributing  the  depression  in  finances  to  other 
causes  than  those  advanced  by  Swedenborg.  The  latter 
immediately  replied,  in  a  memorial  to  the  Diet  of  a  few 
pages,  refuting  the  positions  of  Nordencrantz,  maintaining 
that  the  government  of  Sweden  was  one  of  the  best  in  the 
world,  and  showing  that,  while  in  every  country  there  were 
abuses  to  be  deplored,  true  patriotism  and  statesmanship 
required  all  to  look  on  the  better  and  more  hopeful  side  of 
affairs,  and  not  on  the  worse.  He  says, — 

"  Every  human  being  is  inclined  by  nature,  and  nothing  is 
easier  and  pleasanter  for  him  to  do  than  to  find  faults  in 
others,  and  to  pass  an  unfavorable  judgment  upon  them,  in- 
asmuch as  all  of  us  are  by  nature  inclined  to  see  the  mote  in 
our  brother's  eye  and  not  to  see  the  beam  in  our  own  eyes ; 
moreover  we  are  apt  to  strain  out  a  gnat  and  to  swallow  a 
camel.  All  proud  and  evil-disposed  men  place  their  pru- 
dence in  finding  fault  with  and  blaming  others ;  and  all 
generous  and  truly  Christian  souls  place  their  prudence  in 
judging  all  things  according  to  circumstances,  and  hence 
in  excusing  such  faults  as  may  have  arisen  from  weakness, 
and  in  inveighing  against  such  evils  as  may  have  been  done 
on  purpose.  The  same  also  happens  in  a  general  way  in 
that  which  concerns  governments :  faults,  numberless  faults 
may  be  found  in  all,  so  that  volumes  might  be  filled  with 
them.  Should  I  undertake  to  make  known  all  the  mistakes 
of  which  I  have  heard,  and  which  I  know  from  my  own  ex- 
perience to  have  happened  in  England  and  Holland  to  the 
detriment  of  justice  and  the  public  good,  I  believe  I  might  fill 


2/8  THE  DIET. 

a  whole  book  with  lamentations :  when,  nevertheless,  those 
governments,  together  with  our  own  in  Sweden,  are  the  very 
best  in  Europe,  as  every  inhabitant,  notwithstanding  all 
the  shortcomings  which  happen  there,  is  safe  in  his  life  and 
property,  and  no  one  is  a  slave,  but  they  are  all  free  men. 
The  Honorable  Houses  of  the  Diet  will  allow  me  to  go  still 
higher :  if  in  this  world  there  should  exist  a  heavenly  gov- 
ernment, consisting  of  men  who  had  an  angelic  disposition, 
there  would  nevertheless  be  in  it  faults  caused  by  weakness, 
together  with  other  shortcomings ;  and  if  these  were  ferreted 
out,  reported,  and  exaggerated,  this  government  too  might 
be  undermined  by  calumny,  and  thereby  gradually  a  desire 
might  be  raised  among  the  well-disposed  to  change  and  des- 
troy it.  The  best  government,  and  that  which  is  most  wisely 
arranged,  is  our  own  government  in  Sweden;  inasmuch  as 
all  things  are  connected  here  as  in  a  chain,  and  are  joined 
together  for  the  purpose  of  administering  justice  from  the 
highest  leader  to  the  lowest." 

Swedenborg  spoke  from  much  experience,  having  been  a 
favorite  with  several  kings,  an  officer  of  the  government  for 
thirty  years  in  the  College  of  Mines,  and  being  in  the  Diet 
of  the  party  which  curtailed  the  royal  power,  retaining  the 
supreme  control  in  the  Houses  of  the  Diet  themselves.  This 
was  in  1762.  The  next  year  Swedenborg's  views  prevailed, 
and  his  first  measure  passed,  forbidding  bank  loans  on  mov- 
able property.  The  year  after,  Nordencrantz's  party  having 
again  come  into  power,  and  he  having  made  friends  with 
Swedenborg,  they  combined  on  the  proposition  that  the  issue 
of  paper-money  should  be  limited  to  the  amount  of  bullion 
stored  in  bank.  Swedenborg  wished  to  come  to  this  point 
by  degrees.  Nordencrantz  preferred  to  reach  it  at  once,  and 
so  the  Diet  decided.  But  the  measures  proved  too  abrupt  to 
be  sustained,  and  in  a  few  years  all  the  ground  that  had  been 
gained  was  lost. 

Another  state  matter  which  gave  Swedenborg  concern  at 
this  time  was  the  controversy  between  the  Court  and  its  par- 


POLITICAL  VIEWS.  2/9 

tisans  on  the  one  side,  and  the  Diet  in  behalf  of  the  people 
on  the  other.  The  latter  party,  under  the  lead  of  Count 
Hopken  and  other  senators,  had  sustained  the  alliance  of 
Sweden  with  France,  against  the  wishes  of  the  Royal  family, 
which  was  allied  to  that  of  Prussia.  The  war  that  ensued 
was  unfortunate,  and  in  the  reaction  that  followed,  Hopken 
and  two  colleagues  were  obliged  to  resign.  In  1761  Swe- 
denborg  memorialized  the  Diet  in  strong  terms,  urging  the 
necessity  of  maintaining  intact  the  government,  at  once  free 
and  conservative,  which  they  had  hitherto  enjoyed,  resisting 
the  encroachments  of  the  Court,  backed  by  that  of  Prussia, 
itself  under  the  influence  of  intriguing  papacy,  and  main- 
taining sacred  their  alliance  with  France.  In  this  view  he 
strongly  advised  the  restoration  of  Hopken  and  his  col- 
leagues, as  tried  and  faithful  friends  of  Sweden :  advice 
that  was  afterwards  followed.  In  short,  to  quote  from  Swe- 
dish authority,  with  abridgment, — 

"Up  to  the  time  of  his  extreme  old  age  Swedenborg  in- 
terested himself  in  the  administrative,  financial,  and  political 
affairs  of  his  country.  As  a  member  of  the  House  of  No- 
bles, he  was  an  independent  member,  supporting  whatever 
he  saw  to  be  worthy  of  his  own  position  and  to  be  right  and 
generally  useful,  without  allowing  himself  to  be  influenced  by 
the  right  or  the  left  side.  Like  every  true  friend  of  liberty, 
he  was  opposed  alike  to  despotism  and  to  anarchy.  His  en- 
trance into  the  House  of  Nobles  was  contemporaneous  with 
the  re-establishment  of  freedom  in  Sweden.  During  his 
childhood  and  youth  he  had  witnessed  the  misfortunes  into 
which  an  unlimited  monarchy  had  precipitated  his  country. 
He  himself  had  seen  the  misery  and  distress  which  a  war 
of  eighteen  years'  duration,  with  dearly-bought  victories 
and  bloody  defeats,  with  decimated  armies  and  bankrupt 
finances,  attended  by  pestilence  and  famine,  had  brought 
upon  it.  Need  we  wonder,  then,  that  Swedenborg  was  in 
favor  of  a  constitution  which  set  bounds  to  the  arbitrary 
power  and  whims  of  a  hitherto  unlimited  monarchy ;  which 


28O  THE  DIET. 

prevented  the  dissolution  of  the  country,  and  gradually 
changed  discontent  into  satisfaction,  at  least  among  the 
majority  of  its  citizens?  Swedenborg  enjoyed  the  good 
fortune  envied  by  many,  of  having  been  able  during  half 
a  century  to  influence  by  his  vote  the  resolutions  passed 
for  the  welfare  of  his  country,  and  of  not  giving  up  his 
place  in  the  House  of  Nobles  before  the  year  1772,  when 
death  closed  his  eyes  to  the  darkened  prospects  with  which 
a  change  in  the  administration  threatened  Sweden's  inde- 
pendence. He  thus  belonged  to  the  whole  of  that  period 
of  freedom  which  is  valued  so  highly  by  many,  and  is  made 
light  of  by  others.  With  that  period  his  political  career 
began  and  ended." l 

To  this  Swedish  view  of  his  political  position  let  us  add 
one  from  France.  M.  Matter  says, — 

"The  principles  of  speculative  politics  of  Swedenborg  are 
as  pure  as  those  of  his  practical  politics.  There  are  none 
more  advanced.  They  are  modern  politics  elevated  to  their 
entire  purity."2 

He  then  quotes  the  following  passages  from  The  New 
Jerusalem  and  its  Heavenly  Doctrine: — 

"Rulers  are  necessary  for  the  preservation  of  order  in  the 
various  societies  of  mankind ;  and  they  ought  to  be  persons 
well  skilled  in  the  laws,  men  of  wisdom,  having  the  fear  of 
God.  There  must  also  be  order  among  the  rulers  themselves  ; 
lest  any  of  them,  from  caprice  or  ignorance,  should  sanction 
evils  which  are  contrary  to  order,  and  thereby  destroy  it. 
This  is  guarded  against  by  the  appointment  of  superior  and 
inferior  rulers,  among  whom  there  is  subordination.  .  .  . 
Rulers  set  over  those  things  which  relate  to  the  world,  or 
civil  affairs,  are  called  magistrates,  and  their  chief,  where 
such  a  form  of  government  is  established,  is  called  the  king. 
.  .  .  The  royalty  itself  is  not  in  any  person,  but  is  annexed 
to  the  person.  The  king  who  believes  that  the  royalty  is  in 

1  Nya  Kyrkan,  i  Sverige  part  ii.  p.  48. 

2  Swedenborg :  sa  vie,  etc.,  p.  23. 


THE  JUDGMENT.  28 1 

his  own  person,  or  the  officer  who  supposes  that  the  dignity 
of  his  office  is  in  his  own  person,  is  not  wise. 

"The  royalty  consists  in  administering  and  in  judging 
from  justice,  according  to  the  laws  of  the  realm.  The  king 
who  considers  the  laws  superior  to  himself  is  wise ;  but  he 
who  considers  himself  superior  to  the  laws  is  not  wise.  The 
king  who  regards  the  laws  as  above  himself  places  the  royalty 
in  the  law,  and  submits  to  its  dominion ;  he  knows  that  the 
law  is  justice,  and  that  all  justice  which  is  really  such  is  Di- 
vine. But  he  who  regards  himself  as  above  the  laws  places 
the  royalty  in  himself,  and  either  believes  himself  to  be  the 
law,  or  the  law, —  that  is,  justice, —  to  be  derived  from  him- 
self. Hence  he  arrogates  to  himself  that  which  is  Divine, 
and  to  which  he  ought  to  be  in  subjection. 

"  The  law, —  that  is,  justice, —  ought  to  be  enacted  in  the 
realm  by  persons  well  skilled  in  legislation,  men  of  wisdom, 
who  fear  God ;  and  both  the  king  and  his  subjects  ought 
then  to  live  according  to  it.  The  king  who  lives  according 
to  the  laws  so  enacted,  and  therein  sets  an  example  to  his 
subjects,  is  truly  a  king."  (H.  D.  312-333.) 

Little  did  the  members  of  Sweden's  Diet  know,  as  they 
listened  to  Assessor  Swedenborg's  common-sense  advice  on 
matters  of  state  and  finance,  what  stupendous  changes  were 
going  on  in  the  world  of  spirits,  within  their  associate's  per- 
sonal knowledge.  With  the  nearer  presence  there  of  the 
Lord  of  heaven ;  with  the  clear  revelation  of  Himself,  by 
the  Spirit  of  Truth,  in  His  Word,  from  Genesis  to  the  Apo- 
calypse, from  the  Beginning  to  the  End ;  and  with  the  pub- 
lication even  in  this  world  of  genuine,  heavenly  doctrine, 
drawn  from  this  Word  alone,  concerning  Him,  His  Word, 
and  the  duties  of  men, —  the  purposed  and  natural  effect  of 
the  new  revelation  was  produced.  A  judgment  was  being 
effected,  the  judgment  that  was  foretold  to  the  disciples  as 
to  attend  this  coming  of  the  Son  of  Man  in  the  clouds  of 
heaven,  that  is,  in  the  clouds  of  the  letter  of  the  Word ;  and 


282  THE    JUDGMENT. 

that  was  exhibited  in  representation  to  John  in  the  vision  of 
the  Apocalypse. 

As  early  as  in  July,  1746,  Swedenborg  noted,  in  his  Ad- 
versaria, that  "in  heaven  all  the  angels  of  God  Messiah  are 
ardently  awaiting  the  last  day,  for  they  think  of  nothing  else  " 
(vi.  4445)- 

In  October,  1747,  he  writes  in  his  Spiritual  Diary  about 
the  good  souls  as  yet  held  in  captivity,  but  to  be  liberated  in 
the  last  judgment,  and  rejoices  in  being  permitted  to  com- 
municate to  them  something  of  the  heavenly  joy  that  was 
granted  him  (n.  218).  A  few  days  later  he  writes, — 

"  Last  night  when  awakened,  many  things  were  shown  me 
which  I  cannot  describe ;  there  was  a  sort  of  revolution  of 
spirits,  with  clear  perception  that  many  who  were  in  the  low- 
est heaven  were  being  thrust  down,  and  that  many  who  were 
in  captivity  were  ascending"  (n.  220).  Then  he  describes 
a  severe  struggle  that  took  place,  the  evil-disposed  trying 
to  take  away  from  the  well-disposed  the  mercy  that  was 
extended  to  them,  and  the  power  of  this  mercy  as  it  came 
from  heaven  and  from  the  Lord, — the  struggle  being  per- 
mitted for  the  purpose  of  making  those  who  were  to  be 
saved  feel  their  utter  dependence  on  the  Divine  mercy.  But 
this  was  only  a  representation  of  what  was  about  to  take 
place. 

Again,  on  the  2Oth  of  November,  he  notes  perceiving 
when  awake  in  the  night  that  very  many  of  those  bound  in 
the  pit  were  being  taken  up  out  of  the  pit,  which  was  be- 
neath the  lowest  heaven,  the  ascent  lasting  a  long  time,  show- 
ing the  great 'numbers.  From  this  vision  again  he  concludes 
that  the  last  time  is  now  at  hand  (n.  259). 

On  the  5th  of  December  he  writes, — 

"I  have  wondered  that  thousands  and  perhaps  myriads 
were  raised  up  out  of  the  pit  or  lower  parts  of  the  earth,  and 
indeed  in  what  way  they  could  all  be  allotted  their  places 
in  the  heavens ;  at  last  I  have  been  taught  to-day  that  the 
most  part  of  them  seem  to  themselves  to  be  conveyed  as  by 


THE   DRAGON.  283 

chariots  and  to  be  borne  around  to  various  places,  and  to 
try  each  one  whether  here  or  there  is  his  proper  place,  that 
is,  whether  there  is  an  agreement  of  his  soul  with  those  who 
are  there  ;  and  otherwise,  as  generally  happens,  being  borne 
on  farther  until  they  find  agreement  and  thus  rest,  that  is, 
with  souls  which  agree  with  their  own  disposition ;  nor  is 
there  ever  a  soul  raised  up  by  God  Messiah  which  does  not 
find  its  rest,  and  thus  company,  with  others  conformable  to  its 
own  disposition"  (n.  297). 

On  the  ist  of  September,  1748,  he  writes, — 
"  Very  many  were  now  glorifying  the  Lord  on  account  of 
His  coming  and  their  liberation  from  hell,  and  there  was  so 
great  joy  at  their  good  fortune  that  some  said  they  could  not 
bear  it.  The  glorification  was  as  if  general,  so  that  some 
even  in  hell  desired  to  join  in  it "  (n.  3029). 

At  this  time  it  becomes  very  common  for  Swedenborg  to 
speak  of  the  "dragon,"  meaning  thereby  the  vast  assemblage 
of  spirits  who  claimed  the  right  to  heaven,  with  no  repentance 
and  no  real  acknowledgment  of  the  Lord,  and  who  both  op- 
pressed the  faithful  and  opposed  all  true  faith  in  the  Lord, 
proceeding  from  Him, —  in  effect,  we  find,  waiting  to  devour 
the  man-child,  the  true  doctrine,  that  was  to  be  born.  From 
his  later  works  we  learn  that  the  heaven  and  earth  described 
in  the  Apocalypse  as  passing  away,  were  in  the  world  of 
spirits,  in  the  midst  between  the  true  heaven  and  hell.  The 
immense  crowd  of  professed  Christians  gathered  in  that  world 
during  the  many  centuries  under  which  the  Church  had  been 
misruled,  who  had  gained  no  true  idea  of  their  Lord  on 
earth,  and  consequently  were  unable  to  approach  and  recog- 
nize Him  in  His  Kingdom,  either  by  their  conceit  imagined 
themselves  already  in  heaven,  or  in  humility,  under  subjec- 
tion, awaited  His  coming  in  their  lower  earth,  as  it  was  called. 
The  latter  were  beginning  to  be  guided  by  the  new  light  that 
was  penetrating,  and  to  be  raised  up  into  the  Presence  of 
their  Lord.  The  time  was  coming  for  the  fictitious  heavens, 
formed  by  those  who  were  represented  by  the  dragon  and 


284  THE  APOCALYPSE. 

by  Babylon,  to  be  judged  and  dispersed  according  to  their 
inward  quality. 

It  is  amazing  to  find  in  Swedenborg's  "Diary,"  for  the  ten 
years  from  1747,  with  what  fulness  and  circumstance  he  has 
described  these  various  collections  of  spirits,  their  quality, 
and  what  was  being  done  with  them.  During  all  this  time, 
the  same  within  which  the  "Arcana"  was  being  published, 
preparations  were  going  on  for  the  judgment,  by  means  of 
the  light  that  was  being  diffused  from  the  recognition  of  the 
Lord  in  His  Word.  Without  special  statement  of  Sweden- 
borg  to  that  effect,  it  is  evident  from  study  of  the  subject 
that  the  mass  of  spirits  in  the  world  of  spirits,  between 
heaven  and  hell,  including  those  who  had  formed  for  them- 
selves and  were  living  in  fictitious  or  imaginary  heavens,  were 
up  to  this  time  as  ignorant  of  the  spiritual  and  celestial  sen- 
ses of  the  Scriptures,  and  thus  of  true  heavenly  doctrine,  as 
were  the  men  whom  they  had  left  on  earth.  And,  further, 
the  unfolding  of  these  senses  in  the  letter  of  the  Word,  or 
the  revelation  of  them  from  heaven  into  the  mind  of  Swe- 
denborg  was  but  a  part,  the  ultimate  part,  of  this  same  rev- 
elation or  unfolding  in  the  world  of  spirits,  to  those  who 
were  ready  to  receive  it ;  and  there  first  the  revelation  had 
its  great  effect. 

In  1757,  according  to  Swedenborg,  the  great  work  culmi- 
nated, as  foretold  in  the  Apocalypse.  For  a  full  description 
of  it  we  must  refer  to  The  Apocalypse  Explained,  in  six  large 
octavo  volumes,  to  The  Apocalypse  Revealed,  in  two  such 
volumes,  or  for  a  brief  survey,  to  The  Last  Judgment,  and 
the  "Continuation"  of  the  same.  Suffice  it  to  say  here, 
that  those  on  whom  the  judgment  was  executed  were  not  the 
openly  evil,  for  they  had  gone  to  their  like  in  hell ;  nor  the 
clear-sighted  good,  for  they  had  found  their  homes  in  heaven  : 
but  they  were  on  the  one  hand  those  who  were  to  appear- 
ance good  and  inwardly  evil,  and  on  the  other  those  who, 
good  in  heart,  were  not  yet  freed  from  the  rule  of  false  ap- 
pearances. In  the  central  part  of  this  vast  world  were  the 


THE  JUDGMENT.  385 

Reformed  Protestants,  for  with  them  was  the  most  knowledge 
of  the  Word  of  God.  Next  around  them  were  the  Papists ; 
then  the  Mahometans  in  vast  numbers,  and  lastly  the  Gen- 
tiles as  a  sea.  The  progress  of  the  judgment  was  from,  fust, 
the  Papists,  represented  by  Babylon,  through  the  Mahome- 
tans and  Gentiles,  to  last  of  all  the  Reformed,  by  whom  the 
sign  of  the  Son  of  Man  was  seen  in  a  white  cloud.  There 
was  nothing  hasty  or  despotic  in  their  judgment.  The  light 
of  the  Lord  of  heaven  appeared  in  His  Word,  by  the  teach- 
ing of  angels  who  visited  them  all,  and  whoever  welcomed 
the  light  was  led  up  by  it  into  heaven,  while  those  whose 
evils  were  disclosed  by  it  rushed  downwards  to  hide  them- 
selves in  the  abyss. 

That  the  judgment  was  exhibited  by  the  Lord  before- 
hand in  vision  to  John  was  not  for  his  immediate  use,  nor 
again,  as  Sir  Isaac  Newton  well  observed,  "  to  gratify  men's 
curiosities  by  enabling  them  to  foreknow  things;  but  that, 
after  they  [the  prophecies]  were  fulfilled,  they  might  be  in- 
terpreted by  the  event,  and  His  own  Providence,  not  the 
interpreters,  be  then  manifested  thereby  to  the  world."  * 
Yet  it  is  not  without  significance  that  it  was  John,  the  same 
disciple  who  was  to  tarry  till  his  Lord  should  come,  to  whom 
it  was  given  to  be  the  witness  of  the  things  foretold, —  John, 
whom  the  Lord  loved  and  who  represented  those  who  are 
in  the  good  of  life  from  love  to  the  Lord.  That  such  are 
they  who  will  await  their  Lord's  coming  and  be  witnesses  of 

1  Sir  Isaac  continues  :  "  For,  as  the  few  and  obscure  prophecies  concerning 
Christ's  first  coming  were  for  setting  up  the  Christian  religion,  which  all  na- 
tions have  since  corrupted,  so  the  many  and  clear  prophecies  concerning  the 
things  to  be  done  at  Christ's  second  coming  are  not  only  for  predicting,  but  also 
lor  effe< •l.in.Lj  a  recovery  and  re -rsl.iMi •Jmirnl.  of  (lie  loni;  lust  ti  ulh,  .iml  setting 
up  a  kingdom  wherein  dwells  righteousness.  The  event  will  prove  the  Apoca- 
lypse ;  and  this  prophecy,  thus  proved  and  understood,  will  open  the  old  proph- 
ets, and  all  together  will  make  known  the  true  religion,  and  establish  it.  For 
he  that  will  under-, t.uul  the  old  piophets,  must  bet; in  with  this  ;  but  the  time  is 
not  ye.t  come  for  understanding  them  perfectly,  because  the  main  revolution 
predicted  in  them  is  not  yet  come  to  pass." — Prophecies  of  Holy  Writt  part  ii. 
sect.  viii. 


286  THE  APOCALYPSE. 

it  to  their  fellow-men,  is  most  plain.  That  it  was  by  being 
led  of  the  Divine  Grace  into  the  good  of  life  from  love  to 
the  Lord,  that  Swedenborg  was  prepared  to  be  a  witness  of 
this  coming  and  to  behold  the  fulfilment  of  the  vision,  in  or- 
der to  make  known  its  interpretation  by  the  event,  clearly 
appears.  Moreover,  the  effect  of  the  announcement  of  the 
Divine  Presence  was  the  same  upon  the  new  witness  that  it 
was  upon  the  old.  John  fell  as  dead  at  the  feet  of  the  angel 
through  whom  the  Lord  spake.  And  Swedenborg  fell  dead, 
as  to  all  that  was  of  self,  in  the  same  Presence.  But  before 
John  could  realize  this  Presence,  after  he  was  spoken  to,  he 
had  to  turn  himself,  for  he  was  not  looking  the  right  way. 
This  Swedenborg  explains  to  mean  that  when  the  churches 
turn  themselves  from  their  idea  of  a  Trinity  of  persons,  to 
that  of  a  Trinity  in  One  Person,  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  there 
will  be  a  new  perception  of  Him  in  His  Word.  And  such 
we  find  to  have  been  notably  the  case  with  Swedenborg  him- 
self. The  process  of  turning  was  going  on  during  the  whole 
period  of  the  Adversaria,  and  when  completed,  in  entire 
humility  and  clear  vision  of  the  Sun  of  heaven,  the  unfold- 
ing of  the  "Arcana"  commenced. 

The  preparation  of  The  Apocalypse  Explained  was  nearly 
contemporaneous  with  the  fulfilment  of  the  predictions, 
beginning  in  1757  and  continuing  some  two  years;  but  it 
was  never  completed  or  published  by  the  author,  although 
carefully  prepared  for  the  printer  to  the  middle  of  the  nine- 
teenth chapter.  The  general  plan  of  the  work  is  similar  to 
that  of  the  "Arcana,"— first,  the  full  text  of  a  chapter,  then 
with  the  first  chapters  a  few  sentences  introducing  the  sub- 
ject, followed  by  a  particular  explication  of  each  verse  or 
phrase,  confirmed  by  numerous  citations  of  other  passages 
in  the  Word  and  explanations  of  them.  In  the  fifth  volume 
there  begin  to  be  full  expositions  of  various  doctrinal  matters 
at  the  end  of  the  sections,  some  of  which  have  since  been 
published  in  separate  treatises.  The  entire  work  was  pub- 
lished in  the  Latin  in  1785-89,  under  the  editorship  of  a 


THE   HOLY   WORD.  287 

committee  of  five  English  gentlemen,  who  completed  it  by 
adding  the  lacking  chapters  from  The  Apocalypse  Revealed, 
and  the  intermediate  matter  from  a  treatise  left  in  manuscript 
on  the  Divine  Love  and  the  Divine  Wisdom.1  Of  the  two 
works,  for  reasons  that  we  shall  presently  see,  the  explication 
of  The  Apocalypse  Revealed  is  the  more  specific  and  practi- 
cally intelligible  to  us  at  the  present  time.  But  the  earlier 
and  more  copious  Apocalypse  Explained  is  full  of  the  heav- 
enly understanding  of  the  Word,  such,  we  have  reason  to 
suppose,  as  had  the  angels  of  the  spiritual  heaven,  and  as 
was  the  efficient  means  used  by  the  Lord  in  the  very  accom- 
plishment of  the  predictions ;  while  in  the  doctrinal  matters 
at  the  ends  of  the  sections  we  find  this  heavenly  understand- 
ing of  the  Word  clearly  set  forth  and  illustrated  for  our  use. 
For  example  :  — 

"The  Word  in  its  literal  sense  appears  before  a  worldly 
man,  whose  mind  is  not  elevated  above  the  sensual  sphere, 
so  simple  that  scarce  anything  can  be  more  so ;  but  still 
Divine  truth,  such  as  is  in  the  heavens,  and  from  which 
angels  derive  their  wisdom,  lies  concealed  therein  as  in  its 
sanctuary.  For  the  Word  in  the  letter  is  like  a  shrine  or 
secret  place  in  the  midst  of  a  temple  covered  with  a  veil, 
within  which  lie  reposited  arcana  of  celestial  wisdom,  such  as 

1  About  the  time  of  publication,  while  the  manuscript  of  this  work  was  in 
charge  of  Mr.  Peckitt,  one  of  the  five  editors,  a  fire  broke  out  at  midnight  and 
soon  reached  his  house.  While  the  family  and  the  firemen  were  busy  rescuing 
what  property  they  could,  the  building  tumbled  in  and  they  narrowly  escaped 
with  their  lives.  In  the  confusion  Mr.  Peckitt  did  not  think  of  the  precious 
manuscript,  which  had  lain  in  his  desk,  till  the  next  morning,  when  he  was  in 
despair  at  recalling  the  sight  of  the  desk  in  flames.  At  the  ruins,  however,  he 
found  a  friend  who  had  picked  up  several  volumes  in  the  street  and  carried 
them  home  for  safety.  Among  them  was  the  manuscript  volume  of  the  Apoc- 
alypse Explained,  A  fireman,  finding  the  desk  too  heavy  to  move,  had  opened 
it  and  thrown  its  contents  into  the  street.  Carrying  the  volume  in  his  arms  to  a 
meeting  of  his  little  society  who  were  grieving  over  his  misfortune,  Mr.  Peckitt 
threw  it  on  the  table  and  burst  into  tears.  "There,"  said  he,  "the  greatest 
treasure  which  \  had  in  my  house  is  preserved  in  safety ;  and  for  the  sake  of 
that,  I  willingly  submit  to  my  great  loss."  He  had  lost  a  library  of  several 
thousand  rare  volumes. 


288  THE  APOCALYPSE. 

the  ear  has  not  heard ;  since  in  the  Word  and  in  every  par- 
ticular thereof  is  contained  a  spiritual  sense,  and  in  this  a 
Divine  celestial  sense,  which,  viewed  in  itself  is  the  very 
Divine  truth  which  is  in  the  heavens,  and  gives  wisdom  to 
angels  and  illustration  to  men. 

"  Divine  truth  which  is  in  the  heavens  is  light  proceeding 
from  the  Lord  as  a  sun,  which  is  Divine  love ;  and  inasmuch 
as  Divine  truth  proceeding  from  the  Lord  is  the  light  of 
heaven,  it  is  also  Divine  wisdom.  This  is  what  illumines  both 
the  minds  and  the  eyes  of  angels ;  and  the  same,  too,  is  what 
enlightens  the  minds  of  men,  but  not  their  eyes,  and  gives 
them  to  understand  truth  and  also  to  perceive  good, —  as  is 
the  case  when  man  reads  the  Word  from  the  Lord,  and  not 
from  himself.  For  he  is  then  in  company  with  the  angels, 
and  inwardly  in  a  perception  like  the  spiritual  perception  of 
angels  ;  and  the  spiritual  perception  enjoyed  by  a  man-angel 
flows  into  his  natural  perception,  which  belongs  to  him  in  the 
world,  and  enlightens  this  also.  Hence  the  man  who  reads 
the  Word  from  the  affection  of  truth  has  illustration  by  or 
through  heaven  from  the  Lord."  (A.  E.  1067.) 

"That  the  Word  is  holy  and  Divine,  from  its  inmost  to 
its  outermosts,  is  not  manifest  to  the  man  who  leads  him- 
self, but  to  the  man  whom  the  Lord  leads;  for  the  man 
who  leads  himself  sees  only  the  external  part  of  the  Word 
and  judges  of  it  from  its  style,  whereas  the  man  whom  the 
Lord  leads  judges  of  the  external  covering  of  the  Word 
from  what  is  holy  contained  within.  The  Word  is  like  a 
garden  which  may  be  called  a  heavenly  paradise,  in  which 
are  dainties  and  delicacies  of  every  kind, — dainties  in  the 
way  of  fruits  and  delicacies  in  the  way  of  flowers,  in  the  midst 
of  which  are  trees  of  life,  and  near  them  fountains  of  living 
water ;  but  round  about  the  garden  are  forest  trees,  and  near 
them  streams  or  rivers.  The  man  who  leads  himself  judges 
of  that  paradise,  which  is  the  Word,  from  its  circumference, 
where  are  the  forest  trees;  but  the  man  whom  the  Lord 
leads  judges  of  it  from  the  centre,  where  are  the  trees  of 


THE   WORD   IN   HEAVEN.  289 

life.  The  man  whom  the  Lord  leads  is  also  really  in  that 
centre  and  looks  upwards  to  the  Lord ;  but  the  man  who 
leads  himself  really  sits  down  in  the  circumference  and  looks 
outward  to  the  world.  The  Word  is  also  like  a  fruit  in  which 
within  there  is  nutritious  pulp,  in  the  centre  of  that  seed- 
capsules,  containing  in  their  inmost  part  a  prolific  principle 
which  in  good  ground  germinates.  It  is  also  as  a  most  beau- 
tiful infant  wrapped  in  swaddling  clothes  upon  swaddling 
clothes,  everywhere  except  the  face,  the  infant  himself  being 
in  the  inmost  heaven,  the  swaddling  clothes  in  the  lower 
heavens,  and  the  outer  covering  in  the  earth.  Since  such  is 
the  nature  of  the  Word,  it  is  holy  and  Divine  from  its  in- 
most to  its  outermost"  (n.  1072). 

The  uncovered  face  in  the  last  simile  is  in  accordance 
with  what  Swedenborg  often  shows,  that  in  certain  passages 
of  the  Word  its  Divinity  and  real  meaning  is  as  plainly  to  be 
seen  by  all  who  regard  it  with  humble  heart,  as  the  spirit  of 
a  man  in  his  face  and  eyes. 

"The  reason  why  the  Word  is  such,  is  because  in  its  origin 
it  is  the  Divine  Itself  proceeding  from  the  Lord,  which  is 
called  Divine  truth, —  and  this  in  its  descent  to  men  in  the 
world  has  passed  through  the  heavens  in  order,  according  to 
their  degrees,  which  are  three.  And  in  every  heaven  it  is 
written  in  accommodation  to  the  wisdom  and  intelligence  of 
the  angels  there  ;  and  lastly  it  is  brought  down  from  the  Lord 
through  the  heavens  to  men,  and  is  there  written  and  promul- 
gated in  a  manner  accommodated  to  their  understanding 
and  apprehension. 

"This,  therefore,  is  the  sense  of  the  letter,  in  which  Divine 
truth  lies  reposited  in  distinct  order,  such  as  it  is  in  the  three 
heavens.  From  which  it  is  evident-  that  all  the  wisdom  of 
the  angels  who  are  in  the  three  heavens  is  included  in  our 
Word  from  the  Lord ;  and  in  the  inmost  thereof  the  wis- 
dom of  the  angels  of  the  third  heaven,  which  is  incompre- 
hensible and  ineffable  to  man,  because  full  of  arcana  and 
treasures  of  Divine  truths.  These  lie  stored  up  in  all  and 

19 


290 


THE   WORD   IN   HEAVEN. 


each  of  the  things  of  our  Word.  And  whereas  Divine  truth 
is  the  Lord  in  the  heavens,  therefore  also  the  Lord  Him- 
self is  present,  and  may  be  said  to  dwell  in  all  and  each 
of  the  things  of  His  Word,  as  in  His  heavens.  As  He 
Himself  said  of  the  ark  of  the  covenant,  in  which  only  the 
ten  precepts  inscribed  on  two  tables,  the  first  fruits  of  the 
Word,  were  reposited,— that  there  He  should  speak  with 
Moses  and  Aaron,  that  there  He  should  be  present,  that 
there  He  would  dwell,  and  that  it  was  His  holy  of  holies  and 
His  dwelling-place,  as  in  heaven"  (n.  1073). 

"Love  truly  conjugial  is  from  the  Lord  alone  :  the  reason 
why  it  is  from  the  Lord  alone  is  because  it  descends  from  the 
lave  of  the  Lord  towards  heaven  and  the  Church,  and  thence 
from  the  love  of  good  and  truth ;  for  it  is  the  Lord  from 
whom  is  good,  and  it  is  heaven  and  the  Church  in  which  is 
truth :  hence  it  follows  that  love  truly  conjugial  in  its  first 
essence  is  love  to  the  Lord.  .  .  .  The  genuine  conjugial 
principle  is  given  especially  in  the  third  heaven,  because  the 
angels  there  are  in  love  to  the  Lord,  acknowledge  Him  alone 
as  God,  and  do  His  commandments.  To  do  the  command- 
ments is  with  them  to  love  Him.  The  commandments  of  the 
Lord  are  to  them  the  truths  in  which  they  receive  Him. 
There  is  conjunction  of  the  Lord  with  them,  and  of  them 
with  the  Lord,  for  they  are  in  the  Lord  because  in  good,  and 
the  Lord  is  in  them  because  in  truth.  This  is  the  heavenly 
marriage,  from  which  love  truly  conjugial  descends. 

"Inasmuch  as  love  truly  conjugial  in  its  first  essence  is 
love  to  the  Lord  from  the  Lord,  it  is  also  innocence.  In- 
nocence consists  in  man's  loving  the  Lord  as  his  Father,  by 
doing  His  commandments  and  desiring  to  be  led  by  Him 
and  not  by  himself,  thus  as  an  infant.  Inasmuch  as  inno- 
cence is  that  love,  it  is  the  very  esse  of  all  good,  and  hence 
man  has  so  much  of  heaven  in  himself,  or  is  so  much  in 
heaven,  as  he  is  in  conjugial  love,  because  he  is  so  much  in 
innocence"  (n.  995-96). 


CHAPTER  XII. 

DOCTRINAL  TREATISES. 

ON  laying  aside  for  a  time  the  explanation  of  the  Apoca- 
lypse, Swedenborg  prepared  for  the  press  several  small  works, 
in  part  drawn  from  what  he  had  already  written  and  in  part 
new.  Of  these  the  following  were  printed,  translating  their 
titles :  The  Doctrine  of  the  New  Jerusalem  concerning  the 
Lord;  The  Doctrine  of  the  New  Jerusalem  concerning  the 
Sacred  Scripture;  The  Doctrine  of  Life  for  the  New  Jerusa- 
lem; The  Doctrine  of  the  New  Jerusalem  concerning  Faith; 
Continuation  concerning  the  Last  Judgment  and  the  Spiritual 
World. 

The  last  named  of  these  treatises  was  published  in  1763. 
The  same  year  was  printed  the  larger  work  entitled  Angelic 
Wisdom  concerning  the  Divine  Love  and  the  Divine  Wisdom. 
As  the  "Arcana"  and  the  works  on  the  Apocalypse  are  the 
treasuries  of  interpretations  of  the  Scriptures,  and  the  trea- 
tise on  Heaven  and  Hell  contains  the  sum  of  the  new  reve- 
lations about  the  other  world,  so  this  compact  treatise  on  the 
Divine  Love  and  Wisdom  contains  the  philosophic  basis  of 
the  new  understanding  to  be  given  in  the  New  Church  of  the 
Divine  essence  and  existence,  and  of  the  Divine  creation 
and  sustenance  of  the  world. 

In  this  work  Swedenborg  seeks  to  lift  the  minds  of  his 
readers  out  of  the  bonds  of  time  and  space,  and  to  help 
them  to  something  of  the  understanding  which  angels  have 
of  the  Divine  nature  and  operation.  The  very  statement  of 
the  design  sufficiently  indicates  the  difficulty  attending  its 
accomplishment.  But  while  no  one,  we  may  venture  to  say, 


DOCTRINAL  TREATISES. 

has  ever  read  the  book  carefully  to  the  end  and  felt  that  he 
has  wholly  mastered  its  contents,  we  may  say  with  no  less 
certainty  that  no  one  has  so  read  it  without  having  more  of 
heavenly  wisdom  and  of  Divine  philosophy  opened  to  him 
than  he  had  ever  dreamed. 

The  book,  though  but  a  small  volume,  is  divided  into  five 
Parts.  In  Part  First  we  are  taught  that  Love  is  Life,  and 
Life  is  Love ;  that  God  alone  is  Love  itself,  because  Life  it- 
self ;  and  that  angels  and  men  are  recipients  of  life  from 
Him ;  that  God  is  very  Man,  because  the  source  of  all  that 
makes  man,  and  of  all  that  mirrors  man  in  the  universe ; 
that  He  is  One  and  indivisible,  God-man ;  that  His  Divine 
Essence  is  Love  and  Wisdom,  and  that  these  together  are 
not  mere  breath,  but  substance  and  form  in  themselves,  the 
self-existing  and  sole-subsisting  Being ;  that  all  things  in  the 
universe  are  created  and  exist  from  this  Divine  Love  and 
Divine  Wisdom  and  are  recipients  thereof;  that  their  uses 
ascend  by  degrees  from  the  lowest  to  man  and  through  man 
to  their  Creator ;  and  that  the  Divine  fills  all  space  without 
space  and  is  in  all  time  without  time,  in  greatests  and  leasts 
the  same. 

In  Part  Second  we  learn  that  in  the  spiritual  world,  as 
in  the  natural  world,  there  is  a  Sun,  on  which  all  things  de- 
pend for  heat,  light,  and  activity ;  that  the  spiritual  Sun,  of 
which  the  natural  sun  is  the  image,  is  the  first  proceeding 
sphere  of  love  and  wisdom  from  the  Lord  as  apparent  to  the 
minds  of  angels,  and  so,  by  the  perfect  correspondence  there 
existing,  visible  before  their  eyes,  as  the  effluence  of  God 
Himself,  from  which  their  bodies  have  warmth  and  light, 
while  their  minds  are  penetrated  with  His  Love  and  Wisdom, 
the  Holy  Spirit ;  that  all  angels  have  this  Sun,  or  the  Divine 
Presence  before  them,  howsoever  they  turn ;  and  that  their 
position  in  the  different  heavens  and  different  quarters  de- 
pends on  the  manner  in  which  they  look  towards  and  behold 
the  Lord  in  their  Sun  :  that  by  this  Sun  the  Lord  has  created 
the  natural  suns  and  all  things  in  the  universe,  and  that  this 


THE  DIVINE  LOVE  AND   WISDOM. 


293 


is  living,  while  all  nature  is  dead,  having  its  life  only  and 
continually  from  Him,  through  His  spiritual  Sun. 

In  Part  Third  Swedenborg  sets  forth  with  much  fulness 
and  illustration  the  doctrine  of  discrete  degrees,  which  he 
had  previously  developed  to  some  extent  in  his  philosophical 
works,  but  now  finds  indispensable  to  the  proper  understand- 
ing of  spiritual  things.  Discrete  degrees  are  distinguished 
from  continuous  or  simultaneous  degrees — to  use  an  inferior 
but  palpable  illustration — as  a  solid,  a  liquid,  and  a  gas  are 
distinguished  in  their  difference  from  such  degrees  of  fluid- 
ity as  are  seen  in  a  liquid  of  greater  or  less  density.  A  bet- 
ter illustration  of  discrete  degrees,  used  by  Swedenborg,  is 
that  of  the  several  atmospheres  around  the  earth  :  the  gross- 
est, which  we  call  air,  by  which  sound  affects  the  ear ;  the 
more  ethereal,  called  by  Swedenborg  ether,  by  whose  vibra- 
tions light  affects  the  eye ;  and  a  still  rarer,  more  active,  all- 
encompassing  and  all-permeating  element,  which  he  calls 
in  his  Principia  the  magnetic,  but  in  the  present  work  does 
not  particularly  name  or  describe.  The  magnetic  is  in  the 
ethereal,  even  in  all  matter.  The  ethereal  is  in  the  aerial  and 
in  some  more  solid  forms  of  matter.  The  grosser  is  the  con- 
tinent of  the  rarer  and  is  created  by  means  of  it,  yet  is  not  a 
simple  condensation  of  it,  nor  the  same  thing  in  grosser 
form.  Such  are  the  discrete  degrees  between  soul  and  body 
and  action  with  man;  between  Divinity,  the  world  of  the 
spirit,  and  the  world  of  the  body ;  between  end,  cause,  and 
effect ;  between  love,  wisdom,  and  operation,  in  God  and  in 
man;  between  the  three  spiritual  atmospheres  proceeding 
from  the  spiritual  Sun  in  which  are  maintained  the  three 
heavens,  one  within  or  above  another  and  invisible  to  it,  as 
the  whole  world  of  spirit  is  invisible  to  us.  Further,  this 
distinction  of  the  heavens  answers  to  three  degrees  or  ca- 
pacities in  the  soul,  by  the  several  openings  of  which  man 
becomes  an  angel  of  the  natural,  spiritual,  or  celestial  heaven 
in  which  reign  respectively  love  of  doing  good  deeds,  love 
towards  the  neighbor,  and  love  to  the  Lord.  That  these 


294  DOCTRINAL  TREATISES. 

three  are  in  our  sight  as  one,  is  because  as  yet  we  cannot 
look  higher  than  the  natural  degree,  and  also  because  in  the 
ultimate  degree  the  higher  degrees  rest  and  are  contained  in 
their  fulness  and  power.  Hence  the  Word  of  God,  which 
contains,  one  within  the  other,  senses  adapted  to  these  seve- 
ral degrees  of  the  mind,  to  the  several  heavens,  and  within 
all  the  Divine  Wisdom  itself,  is  in  the  sense  of  the  letter  in 
its  fulness  and  power.  Hence,  too,  the  Lord  Himself,  who 
from  eternity  was  Love  and  Wisdom,  by  entering  in  time 
into  the  lower,  human  degree  which  He  had  made,  became 
there  present  in  this  humanity  in  fulness  and  power;  for 
therein  dwelt  all  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead  bodily. 

In  Part  Fourth  we  have  an  attempt  to  put  into  natural 
language,  not  the  angelic  ideas  themselves, — which  Sweden- 
borg  expressly  shows  to  be  so  high  above  our  own  as  to  be 
untranslatable  into  our  tongue, —  but  such  a  resemblance  of 
them  as  our  language  is  capable  of,  by  correspondence.  The 
subject  is  creation.  He  shows  that  the  universe  reproduces 
man,  and  that  man  mirrors  and  is  produced  from  the  in- 
finity of  God-man.  Then  he  combats  the  idea  that  the 
universe,  or  anything,  can  be  produced  out  of  nothing,  and 
shows  that,  as  the  nearest  approach  to  the  angelic  idea,  out 
of  God  proceeds  a  sphere  of  love  and  wisdom,  which  is  not 
God,  but  from  Him  and  in  accordance  with  Him,  and  is  the 
spiritual  Sun,  before  described ;  that  out  of  this  Sun  pro- 
ceeds an  atmosphere,  or  successive  atmospheres,  also  before 
mentioned,  which  are  this  love  and  wisdom  resolved  into  the 
use  which  is  their  end ;  that  of  these  atmospheres  are  cre- 
ated the  bodies  of  angels  and  spirits,  with  all  their  surround- 
ings, as  of  the  atmospheres  proceeding  from  the  natural  sun 
are  created  the  earths  and  all  things  upon  them ;  and  that  at 
the  same  time  these  natural  atmospheres  and  all  things  pro- 
duced from  them  are  created  and  sustained  by  means  of  the 
spiritual  atmospheres.  From  the  effort  for  use  in  the  spirit- 
ual atmospheres,  there  is  a  constant  effort  in  the  natural 
atmospheres  and  earths  to  produce  forms  of  uses,  imaging 


THE  DIVINE  LOVE  AND  WISDOM.  295 

the  universal  use,  man  and  the  Infinite.  As,  however,  the 
Lord  suffers  the  good  use  of  the  atmospheres  of  heaven  to 
be  perverted  to  the  very  opposite  in  hell,  so  He  suffers  the 
influx  of  these  perversions  to  bring  to  pass  corresponding 
evil  uses,  noxious  animals  and  plants,  on  earth ;  while  the  in- 
flux without  perversion  brings  forth  only  such  good  uses, 
beneficent  animals  and  plants,  as  correspond  to  heavenly 
things.  Both  kinds  are  produced  by  power  from  Him,  but 
only  the  good  by  His  will. 

Part  Fifth  treats  of  the  creation  of  man,  with  will  and 
understanding  to  receive  the  Lord's  Love  and  Wisdom.  The 
residence  of  these  primarily  in  the  brains  and  their  represen- 
tation in  the  heart  and  lungs  are  described  at  length,  and 
afterwards  the  development  and  the  mutual  relation  of  the 
two  faculties  are  described  and  illustrated  by  the  action  and 
mutual  relation  of  the  two  organs  :  — 

"  That  there  is  a  correspondence  of  the  will  and  under- 
standing with  the  heart  and  lungs,  and  thence  a  correspond- 
ence of  all  things  of  the  mind  with  all  things  of  the  body,  is 
new  and  hitherto  unknown,  because  it  has  not  been  known 
what  spiritual  is,  and  what  is  its  difference  from  natural,  and 
therefore  what  correspondence  is, — there  being  a  corres- 
pondence of  spiritual  with  natural  things,  and  thereby  con- 
junction of  them ;  but  still  both  might  have  been  known. 
Who  does  not  know  that  affection  and  thought  are  spiritual, 
and  hence  that  all  things  of  affection  and  thought  are  spirit- 
ual ?  Who  does  not  know  that  action  and  speech  are  nat- 
ural, and  hence  all  things  of  action  and  speech  natural? 
Who  does  not  know  that  affection  and  thought,  which  are 
spiritual,  cause  a  man  to  act  and  speak?  Who  may  not 
hence  know  what  the  correspondence  is  of  spiritual  with 
natural  things?  Does  not  thought  cause  the  tongue  to 
speak,  and  affection  with  thought  cause  the  body  to  act? 
They  are  two  distinct  things.  I  can  think  and  not  speak, 
and  will  and  not  act ;  and  it  is  known  that  the  body  does 
not  think  and  will,  but  that  thought  flows  into  speech  and 


296  DOCTRINAL  TREATISES. 

will  into  action.  Does  not  affection  shine  forth  in  the  face, 
and  present  therein  a  type  of  itself?  This  every  one  knows. 
Is  not  affection,  considered  in  itself,  spiritual,  and  the 
changes  of  face,  or  the  looks,  natural?  Who  might  not 
hence  have  concluded  that  there  is  a  correspondence  of  all 
things  of  the  mind  with  all  things  of  the  body  ?  And  as  all 
things  of  the  mind  relate  to  affection  and  thought,  or,  what 
is  the  same,  to  the  will  and  understanding,  and  all  things  of 
the  body  to  the  heart  and  lungs, — who  might  not  hence 
have  concluded  that  there  is  a  correspondence  of  the  will 
with  the  heart  and  of  the  understanding  with  the  lungs? 
Such  things  have  not  been  known,  although  they  might  have 
been  known,  because  man  has  become  so  external  that  he 
is  unwilling  to  acknowledge  anything  but  what  is  natural." 
(D.L.&W.  374.) 

"The  heavens  are  distinguished  into  two  kingdoms,  the 
celestial  and  the  spiritual  kingdom.  Love  to  the  Lord  is 
predominant  in  the  celestial  kingdom,  and  wisdom  from  that 
love  in  the  spiritual  kingdom.  The  kingdom  where  love  is 
predominant  is  called  the  cardiac  kingdom  of  heaven,  and 
the  kingdom  where  wisdom  is  predominant  is  called  the  pul- 
monic  kingdom  of  heaven"  (n.  381). 

"  Here,  for  the  sake  of  confirmation,  I  may  adduce  a  rep- 
resentation of  the  correspondence  of  the  will  and  under- 
standing with  the  heart  and  lungs,  which  was  seen  in  heaven 
among  the  angels.  They,  by  a  wonderful  flowing  into  gyres, 
such  as  no  words  can  express,  formed  the  likeness  of  a  heart 
and  lungs,  with  all  their  interior  structures ;  in  doing  which 
they  followed  the  flow  of  heaven ;  for  heaven  tends  to  such 
forms  by  virtue  of  the  inflowing  of  love  and  wisdom  from  the 
Lord.  Thus  they  represented  the  conjunction  of  the  heart 
and  lungs,  and  at  the  same  time  their  correspondence  with 
the  love  of  the  will  and  the  wisdom  of  the  understanding" 
(n.  376). 

In  this  we  have  a  glimpse  of  the  need  to  Swedenborg,  for 
understanding  the  soul's  kingdom,  of  his  thorough  prepara- 


THE  DIVINE  PROVIDENCE. 


297 


tion  in  the  study  of  the  human  body.  The  soul,  as  he  rightly 
assumed  from  his  philosophical  researches,  determines  the 
structure  of  the  body,  even  to  minutest  particulars,  in  ac- 
cordance with  its  own  essence  and  manifold  needs.  It  is, 
then,  itself  a  prior  and  more  perfect  example  of  the  human 
form.  But  least  forms  image  greatest.  The  soul  images  the 
whole  heaven  ;  for  the  whole  heaven  as  a  one,  like  each  soul 
in  particular,  is  formed  to  receive  in  fulness  of  the  Divine  ful- 
ness, and  is  therefore  formed  into  the  Divine  image  and  like- 
ness. Nor  is  this  a  matter  alone  or  principally  of  form,  but 
primarily  of  life  and  use.  It  would  have  been  impossible,  then, 
for  Swedenborg  to  have  gained  a  thorough  understanding  of 
the  life  and  order  of  heaven,  or  even  of  the  individual  soul, 
without  the  preparation  provided  for  him  in  the  thorough  . 
study  of  the  human  body. 

Closely  and  appropriately  following  this  work  on  the  Divine 
Love  and  Wisdom,  in  1 764,  came  another  small  book  called 
Angelic  Wisdom  Concerning  the  Divine  Providence.  The 
two  works  together  furnish  just  the  help  needed  for  entering 
rationally  into  the  mysteries  of  faith. 

Of  the  Divine  Providence  we  learn  that  it  is  the  govern- 
ment of  the  Divine  Love  and  Divine  Wisdom  of  the  Lord, 
regarding  what  is  infinite  and  eternal,  and  temporal  things 
only  so  far  as  they  agree  with  the  eternal,  and  having  for  its 
end  a  heaven  from  the  human  race.  For  heaven  is  con- 
junction with  the  Lord,  and  the  more  nearly  man  is  con- 
joined to  the  Lord,  the  wiser  he  becomes,  the  happier  he 
becomes,  and  the  more  distinctly  does  he  appear  to  himself 
as  his  own,  at  the  same  time  that  he  the  more  plainly  per- 
ceives that  he  is  the  Lord's.  According  to  the  laws  of  the 
Divine  Providence,  man  is  to  act  from  freedom  according 
to  reason,  and  should  as  of  himself  remove  the  evils  in  the 
external  man,  whereat  the  Lord  can  remove  them  in  the 
internal,  and  then  again  in  the  external.  Man  is  not  to 
be  compelled  by  external  means  to  think  and  will  religious 
things,  but  should  lead  and  compel  himself.  Man  is  led  and 


298  DOCTRINAL  TREATISES. 

taught  by  the  Lord  from  heaven,  through  the  Word,  doctrine, 
and  preachings  from  it,  and  this  in  all  appearance  as  of  him- 
self. Man  does  not  perceive  and  feel  anything  of  the  oper- 
ation of  the  Divine  Providence,  but  yet  should  know  and 
acknowledge  it.  The  laws  of  permission  are  also  laws  of 
Providence,  evils  being  permitted  for  the  sake  of  the  end  of 
salvation.  The  Divine  Providence  is  equally  with  the  evil  as 
with  the  good,  every  man  being  predestinated  to  heaven  and 
not  to  hell,  and  having  the  opportunity  provided  by  which  he 
may  be  saved  if  he  will,  but  no  one  being  compelled  against 
his  will.  For  "  the  Lord  cannot  act  contrary  to  the  laws  of 
the  Divine  Providence,  because  to  act  contrary  to  them  would 
be  to  act  contrary  to  His  Divine  Love  and  contrary  to  His 
Divine  Wisdom,  thus  contrary  to  Himself." 

All  these  points  and  many  others  are  amply  shown  by 
argument  and  illustration.  As  a  specimen  of  the  manner  of 
treatment  we  will  give  a  paragraph  or  two  :  — 

"  That  no  one  can  think  from  himself,  but  from  the  Lord, 
all  the  angels  of  heaven  confess  ;  but  that  no  one  can  think 
from  any  other  than  from  himself,  all  the  spirits  of  hell  say : 
yet  it  has  been  many  times  shown  to  the  latter  that  not  one 
of  them  thinks  from  himself,  nor  can ;  but  that  the  thought 
flows  in.  It  was  in  vain ;  they  were  unwilling  to  receive  it. 
Experience  however  will  teach,  first,  that  all  of  thought  and 
affection,  even  with  the  spirits  of  hell,  flows  in  from  heaven ; 
but  that  good  flowing  in  is  there  turned  into  evil,  and  truth 
into  falsity, — thus  all  into  their  opposite.  This  was  shown 
in  this  way :  there  was  let  down  from  heaven  a  truth  from 
the  Word,  which  was  received  in  hell  by  those  who  were 
above,  and  by  them  let  down  into  the  lower  parts,  even  to 
the  lowest ;  and  on  the  way  it  was  successively  turned  into 
falsity,  and  at  length  into  the  falsity  altogether  opposite  to 
the  truth.  They  with  whom  it  was  changed  thought  the  fal- 
sity from  themselves,  and  did  not  know  otherwise  ;  when  yet 
it  was  a  truth  from  heaven  thus  falsified  and  perverted  on 
the  way  while  flowing  down  to  the  lowest  hell.  .  .  . 


THE   DIVINE  PROVIDENCE.  299 

"When  it  was  given  me  by  the  Lord  to  speak  with  spirits 
and  angels,  this  mystery  was  immediately  disclosed  to  me ; 
for  it  was  said  to  me  from  heaven  that  I  believed,  like  others, 
that  I  thought  and  willed  of  myself,  when  yet  nothing  was 
from  myself;  but  whatever  was  good  was  from  the  Lord, 
and  whatever  evil,  from  hell.  That  it  was  so  was  also  shown 
to  the  life  by  various  thoughts  and  affections  induced  upon 
me,  and  it  was  gradually  given  me  to  perceive  and  feel  it. 
Wherefore  afterwards,  as  soon  as  any  evil  glided  into  the  will, 
or  any  falsity  into  the  understanding,  I  searched  whence  it 
was  and  it  was  disclosed  to  me ;  and  it  was  also  given  me  to 
speak  with  those  from  whom  it  came,  and  to  confute  them, 
and  to  compel  them  to  recede,  and  thus  to  take  back  their 
evil  and  falsity  and  retain  it  with  themselves,  and  not  infuse 
any  such  thing  into  my  thought  any  more.  This  has  been 
done  a  thousand  times,  and  I  have  remained  in  this  state  now 
for  many  years,  and  still  remain  in  it.  And  yet  I  seem  to 
myself  to  think  and  will  of  myself,  like  others,  with  no  differ- 
ence ;  for  it  is  of  the  Providence  of  the  Lord  that  it  should 
appear  so  to  every  one."  (D.  P.  288,  290.) 

" Every  man  was  created  that  he  might  come  into  heaven: 
this  is  the  end  of  creation.  But  that  all  do  not  come  into 
heaven  is  because  they  imbibe  the  delights  of  hell  opposite 
to  the  blessedness  of  heaven ;  and  they  who  are  not  in  the 
blessedness  of  heaven  cannot  enter  heaven,  for  they  do  not 
endure  it.  It  is  denied  to  no  one  who  comes  into  the  spirit- 
ual world,  to  ascend  into  heaven ;  but  when  he  who  is  in  the 
delight  of  hell  comes  thither,  he  palpitates  at  heart,  is  troubled 
in  breathing,  his  life  begins  to  fail,  he  is  pained,  is  tortured, 
and  rolls  himself  about  like  a  serpent  brought  to  the  fire. 
This  is  so  because  opposite  acts  against  opposite.  But  still, 
because  they  were  born  men,  and  are  thereby  in  the  faculty 
of  thinking  and  willing,  and  thence  in  the  faculty  of  speaking 
and  acting,  they  cannot  die.  Yet,  because  they  cannot  live 
with  any  others  than  with  those  who  are  in  like  delight  of  life 
with  their  own,  they  are  sent  back  to  them ;  thus  they  who 


30O  DOCTRINAL  TREATISES. 

are  in  the  delights  of  evil  to  their  own,  and  they  who  are  in 
the  delights  of  good  to  their  own.  Yea,  it  is  given  to  every 
one  to  be  in  the  delight  of  his  evil,  provided  he  does  not 
infest  those  who  are  in  the  delight  of  good;  but  because 
evil  cannot  do  otherwise  than  infest  good,  —  for  in  evil  there 
is  hatred  against  good, — therefore,  lest  they  should  bring 
harm,  the  evil  are  removed  and  cast  down  into  their  places 
in  hell,  where  their  delight  is  turned  into  misery.  But  this 
does  not  prevent  that  man  should  be  from  creation  and 
should  be  born  such  that  he  can  come  into  heaven :  for 
every  one  who  dies  an  infant  comes  into  heaven,  is  educated 
and  instructed  there,  as  a  man  in  the  world,  and  by  the  affec- 
tion of  good  and  truth  is  imbued  with  wisdom,  and  becomes 
an  angel.  In  like  manner  might  a  man  who  is  educated  and 
instructed  in  the  world,  for  the  like  is  in  him  as  in  an  infant. 
But  that  this  does  not  take  place  with  many  in  the  world  is 
because  they  love  the  first  degree  of  their  life,  which  is  called 
the  natural,  and  do  not  wish  to  recede  from  it  and  become 
spiritual.  And  the  natural  degree  of  life,  viewed  in  itself, 
loves  nothing  but  itself  and  the  world,  for  it  coheres  to  the 
senses  of  the  body,  which  are  also  prominent  in  the  world ; 
but  the  spiritual  degree  of  life,  viewed  in  itself,  loves  the  Lord 
and  heaven,  and  also  itself  and  the  world, — yet  God  and 
heaven  as  superior,  principal,  and  ruling,  and  itself  and  the 
world  as  inferior,  instrumental,  and  serving."  (D.  P.  324.) 

From  1764  to  1766  Swedenborg  was  employed  in  writing 
and  publishing  a  new  explication  of  the  Apocalypse,  with  the 
title  of  The  Apocalypse  Revealed.  The  Apocalypse  Explained 
had  been  written  about  the  time  of  the  spiritual  fulfilment  of 
the  events  foretold.  It  is  not  improbable  that  its  immediate 
use  was  the  establishment  of  the  doctrines  involved,  as  a 
means  for  the  execution  of  the  judgment,  by  its  exhaustive 
citation  and  comparison  of  parallel  passages  from  the  Word. 
This  work  being  accomplished,  the  explication  was  suspended, 
as  we  have  seen,  in  the  nineteenth  chapter ;  and  when  it  was 
resumed,  in  The  Apocalypse  Revealed,  it  was  recommenced 


THE  APOCALYPSE  REVEALED.  301 

from  the  beginning,  with  less  copious  citation  of  proof,  and 
with  more  particular  application  to  the  New  Church  about  to 
be  established  on  earth. 

The  Apocalypse  had  been  a  sealed  book.  Many  attempts 
had  been  made  to  trace  its  predictions  in  the  historical 
events  of  the  Christian  Church.  Many  writers,  both  Pro- 
testant and  Roman  Catholic,  had  concluded  that  the  measure 
of  the  Church's  iniquity  was  full,  and  that  her  day  of  judg- 
ment was  at  hand.  Many  events  seemed  the  beginning  of 
the  end.  But  while  all  were  looking  for  a  visible  judgment 
on  earth,  Swedenborg  published  his  account  of  its  already 
taking  place  in  the  other  world,  and  of  the  commencement 
that  was  being  made  of  its  gradual  accomplishment  among 
men.  For  it  appears  that  the  vision  seen  by  John  represented 
both  what  was  to  take  place,  at  the  end  of  the  Church,  in  the 
spiritual  world,  and  what  is  to  take  place  by  slow  degrees  in 
the  Church  on  earth. 

John  represents  those  who  are  in  the  good  of  life,  from 
faith  in  the  Lord,  who  remain  through  the  desolation  of  the 
Church,  and  who  first  become  aware  of  their  Lord's  coming. 
The  Lord's  coming  in  the  clouds  and  appearing  in  the  midst 
of  the  seven  golden  candlesticks,  represents  His  manifesta- 
tion as  the  bearer  of  all  light  in  the  obscurity  of  the  letter  of 
His  Word.  John's  falling  at  His  feet  as  dead  is  the  prostra- 
tion of  self  and  deep  humility  of  heart  with  which  alone  the 
Lord  is  perceived.  The  seven  churches  are  the  members  of 
the  Christian  Church  in  their  various  states,  more  or  less  salv- 
able.  What  was  seen  through  the  door  in  heaven,  chap,  iv., 
was  the  ordering  of  all  things  in  preparation  for  the  judgment. 
The  recognition  of  the  Lamb  as  the  only  one  who  could  open 
the  Book  was  the  acknowledgment  that  the  Lord  alone  in 
His  humanity  can  unfold  His  Word  and  judge  thereby  His 
people.  By  those  who  sat  on  horses  of  different  colors  are 
meant  the  various  states  of  understanding  of  the  Word.  The 
souls  under  the  altar  are  those  who  have  lived  a  good  life  in 
the  fear  of  the  Lord,  and  have  been  oppressed  by  the  rulers 


3<D2  DOCTRINAL  TREATISES. 

of  the  Church,  but  have  been  preserved  by  the  Divine  care. 
The  rolling  away  of  heaven  as  a  scroll  is  the  dissolution  of  the 
fictitious  heavens  which  pretended  Christians  had  formed  for 
themselves,  as  soon  as  their  interiors  were  disclosed  by  the 
light  of  the  Lord's  coming.  The  hundred  and  forty  and  four 
thousand  are  they  of  the  Church  of  every  kind,  whose  interiors 
are  good  and  marked  with  the  Lord's  name.  The  woes  fol- 
low the  exploration  of  the  states  of  those  who  rely  on  faith 
alone.  The  woman  clothed  with  the  sun  signifies  the  New 
Church  that  is  to  come,  and  the  man-child  the  doctrine  of 
that  Church,  opposed  frantically  by  the  dragon,  the  doctrine 
of  faith  alone.  The  ruling  of  the  nations  by  the  man-child 
with  a  rod  of  iron,  represents  the  power  of  the  new  doctrine 
by  the  letter  of  the  Word,  from  which  it  is  drawn,  and  by 
rational  argument  from  the  light  of  nature,  with  which  it  is 
confirmed  ;  but  this  needs  concealment  and  protection  for  a 
time.  The  war  in  heaven  is  the  battle  with  those  who  are  in 
faith  alone,  driving  them  out  of  their  fictitious  heavens.  The 
Lamb  on  Mount  Zion  with  the  hundred  and  forty  and  four 
thousand  signifies  the  Lord  in  the  midst  of  the  new  heaven, 
now  forming,  of  those  Christians  who  could  be  saved  by  their 
acknowledgment  of  the  Divine  Humanity.  The  first  effect 
of  His  sending  forth  His  Gospel  anew  to  the  earth  is  the 
downfall  of  Babylon,  the  Roman  Catholic  religion  ;  and  then 
comes  the  torment  of  those  who  worship  the  beast,  who  are 
fixed  in  faith  alone.  The  eager  desire  of  the  heavens  that 
the  direful  state  on  earth  should  be  ended,  is  expressed  by 
the  cry  to  the  Lord  that  He  should  thrust  in  His  sharp  sickle. 
The  reaping  and  pressing  signify  exploration.  The  golden 
vials  full  of  the  wrath  of  God  are  the  holy  good  and  truth  of 
heaven  flowing  in  and  making  the  evil  of  the  Church  mani- 
fest. The  exhibition  of  Babylon  as  a  harlot  reveals  the  state 
of  those,  especially  of  the  Romish  Church,  who  are  in  the  lust 
of  dominion  by  means  of  the  Word.  The  beast  is  the  Word 
itself  put  to  this  degraded  use.  The  ten  horns  that  hate  the 
woman  and  destroy  her  are  truths  of  the  Word  among  Pro- 


MEMORABLE   EXPERIENCE.  303 

testants  that  destroy  the  power  of  Rome  :  lamentation  fol- 
lows of  all  who  have  sought  their  gain  in  her,  and  glorifica- 
tion in  heaven.  The  coming  Church  in  genuine  truth  is  de- 
scribed as  the  wife  in  fine  linen ;  and  again  the  doctrine  of 
this  Church  is  described  as  the  Holy  City,  descending  from 
God  out  of  heaven,  into  which  there  shall  enter  nothing  that 
defileth  nor  that  maketh  a  lie,  but  they  which  are  written  in 
the  Lamb's  book  of  life. 

This  is  a  scanty  outline  of  the  explication  which  fills  three 
volumes.  At  the  end  of  each  chapter  is  a  description  of  what 
the  author  was  permitted  to  see  taking  place  in  the  fulfilment 
of  the  Apocalypse,  of  which  the  following  from  the  close 
of  the  explanation  of  the  eleventh  chapter  will  serve  as  a 
specimen  :  — 

"  I  was  once  seized  suddenly  with  a  disease  that  seemed 
to  threaten  my  life.  I  suffered  excruciating  pain  all  over 
my  head ;  a  pestilent  smoke  ascended  from  that  Jerusalem 
[in  the  world  of  spirits]  which  is  called  Sodom  and  Egypt ; 
half  dead  with  the  severity  of  my  sufferings,  I  expected  every 
moment  would  be  my  last.  Thus  I  lay  in  my  bed  three  days 
and  a  half;  my  spirit  was  reduced  to  this  state,  and  my  body 
in  consequence.  And  then  I  heard  the  voices  of  persons 
about  me,  saying,  <Lo,  he  who  preached  repentance  for  the 
remission  of  sins,  and  the  man  Christ  alone,  lies  dead  in  the 
streets  of  our  city.'  And  they  asked  some  of  the  clergy 
whether  he  was  worthy  of  burial ;  who  answered,  '  No,  let 
him  lie  to  be  looked  at.'  And  they  passed  to  and  fro,  and 
mocked.  All  this  befell  me,  of  a  truth,  when  I  was  writing 
the  explanation  of  this  chapter  of  the  Apocalypse.  Then 
were  heard  many  shocking  speeches  of  scoffers  who  said, 
'  How  can  repentance  be  performed  without  faith  ?  And  how 
can  the  man  Christ  be  adored  as  God  ?  Since  we  are  saved 
of  free  grace  without  any  merit  of  our  own,  what  need  is  there 
of  any  faith  but  this, — that  God  the  Father  sent  the  Son  to 
take  away  the  curse  of  the  law,  to  impute  his  merit  to  us, 
and  so  to  justify  us  in  His  sight,  and  absolve  us  from  our  sins 


304  DOCTRINAL  TREATISES. 

by  the  declaration  of  a  priest,  and  then  give  the  Holy  Ghost 
to  operate  all  good  in  us  ?  Are  not  these  doctrines  agreeable 
to  Scripture,  and  consistent  with  reason  also  ?  '  All  this  the 
crowd  who  stood  by  agreed  to  and  applauded.  I  heard 
what  passed  without  the  power  of  replying,  being  almost 
dead ;  but  after  three  days  and  a  half  my  spirit  recovered, 
and  being  in  the  spirit  I  left  the  street  and  went  into  the  city, 
and  said  again,  '  Do  the  work  of  repentance  and  believe  in 
Christ,  and  your  sins  will  be  remitted  and  ye  will  be  saved ; 
but  otherwise  ye  will  perish.  Did  not  the  Lord  Himself 
preach  repentance  for  the  remission  of  sins,  and  that  men 
should  believe  in  Him?  Did  not  He  enjoin  His  disciples  to 
preach  the  same  ?  Is  not  a  full  and  fatal  security  of  life  the 
sure  consequence  of  this  dogma  of  your  faith?'  But  they 
replied,  '  What  idle  talk  !  Has  not  the  Son  made  satisfac- 
tion? And  does  not  the  Father  impute  it  to  us,  and  justify 
us  who  have  believed  in  it  ?  Thus  are  we  led  by  the  spirit 
of  grace  ;  how  then  can  sin  have  place  in  us,  and  what  power 
has  death  over  us  ?  Do  you  comprehend  this  Gospel,  thou 
preacher  of  sin  and  repentance?'.  At  that  instant  a  voice 
was  heard  from  heaven,  saying,  '  What  is  the  faith  of  an  im- 
penitent man  but  a  dead  faith  ?  The  end  is  come,  the  end  is 
come  upon  you  that  are  secure,  unblamable  in  your  own  eyes, 
justified  in  your  own  faith,  ye  devils.'  And  suddenly  a  deep 
gulf  was  opened  in  the  midst  of  the  city,  which  spread  itself 
far  and  wide  :  and  the  houses  fell  one  upon  another  and  were 
swallowed  up  ;  and  presently  water  began  to  bubble  up  from 
the  wide  whirlpool,  and  overflowed  the  waste. 

"  When  they  were  thus  overwhelmed  and,  to  appearance, 
drowned,  I  was  desirous  to  know  their  condition  in  the  deep  ; 
and  a  voice  from  heaven  said  to  me,  '  Thou  shalt  see  and 
hear.'  And  straightway  the  waters  in  which  they  seemed  to 
be  drowned,  disappeared ;  for  waters  in  the  spiritual  world 
are  correspondences,  and  hence  appear  to  surround  those 
who  are  in  falses.  Then  they  appeared  to  me  in  a  sandy 
place,  where  there  were  large  heaps  of  stones,  amongst  which 


CONJUGIAL  LOVE.  305 

they  were  running,  and  lamenting  that  they  were  cast  out  of 
their  great  city ;  and  they  lifted  up  their  voices  and  cried, 
'  Why  has  all  this  befallen  us  ?  Are  we  not  by  our  faith  clean, 
pure,  just,  and  holy?  .  .  .  Are  we  not  reconciled,  propitiated, 
expiated,  and  thus  absolved,  washed,  and  cleansed  from  sins  ? 
And  is  not  the  curse  of  the  law  taken  away  by  Christ  ?  Why 
then  are  we  cast  down  here  as  the  damned?  We  have  been 
told  by  a  presumptuous  preacher  of  sin  in  our  great  city, 
"  Believe  in  Christ  and  repent."  But  have  we  not  believed 
in  Christ  while  we  believed  in  his  merit  ?  And  have  we  not 
done  the  work  of  repentance  while  we  confessed  ourselves 
sinners  ?  Why  then  has  all  this  befallen  us  ?  '  But  immedi- 
ately a  voice  from  one  side  said  to  them,  '  Do  you  know  any 
one  sin  that  is  in  you  ?  Have  you  ever  examined  yourselves  ? 
Have  you  in  consequence  shunned  any  evil  as  a  sin  against 
God  ?  For  he  who  does  not  shun  sin,  remains  in  it ;  and  is 
not  sin  the  Devil?  Ye  are  therefore  of  the  class  of  whom 
the  Lord  said,  Then  shall  ye  begin  to  say,  '  We  have  eaten 
and  drunk  in  thy  presence,  and  thou  hast  taught  in  our 
streets  ;'  but  He  shall  say, '  I  tell  you  I  know  you  not,  whence 
ye  are ;  depart  from  me,  all  ye  workers  of  iniquity.'  .  .  . 
Depart  ye,  therefore,  every  one  to  his  own  place ;  you  see 
the  openings  into  those  caverns ;  enter,  and  there  work  shall 
be  given  each  of  you  to  do,  and  afterwards  food  according  to 
your  work ;  but  should  you  refuse  at  present  to  enter,  the 
demands  of  hunger  will  speedily  compel  you.'"  (A.  R.  531.) 
In  the  years  1766  and  1767  Swedenborg  wrote  much  on 
the  Divine  institution  of  marriage.  From  what  was  written 
he  selected  and  published  in  1768  The  Delights  of  Wisdom 
Concerning  Conjugial1  Love;  followed  by  The  Pleasures  of 
Insanity  Concerning  Scortatory  Love.  To  this  work,  first  of 

1  The  love  portrayed  by  Swedenborg  under  this  title  is  of  an  interior  nature, 
effecting  the  union  of  souls.  This  may  be  the  reason  why  he  chose  the  poetic 
word  used  by  Ovid,  conjugialis,  instead  of  the  more  common  conjugalis. 
With  the  feeling  that  such  a  distinction  ought  to  be  preserved,  his  translators 
have  kept  it  in  "conjugial,"  which  may  now  be  said  to  have  passed  into  our 
language. 

2O 


306  DOCTRINAL  TREATISES. 

his  doctrinal  or  theological  works,  he  attached  his  name, — 
"By  Emanuel  Swedenborg,  of  Sweden."  Perhaps  he  felt 
more  personal  responsibility  for  its  teachings,  and  probably 
he  saw  the  need  that  all  these  works  should  be  grouped 
together  under  his  name.  Accordingly  he  appends  a  list  of 
the  works  hitherto  published,  and  also  announces  a  complete 
statement  of  "  the  Doctrine  of  the  New  Church  predicted  by 
the  Lord  in  the  Apocalypse"  as  to  be  published  within  two 
years.  (Original  edition,  p.  328.) 

This  work  on  Conjugial  Love  was  the  first  to  gain  many 
readers,  and  was  widely  circulated.  Eminent  clergymen,  and 
unprejudiced  spiritual  minds  generally,  have  recognized  its 
elevating  power  and  commended  its  study ;  but  it  is  rightly 
appreciated  by  those  only  who  love  to  find  in  every  blessing 
that  which  is  spiritual  and  from  the  Lord.  To  such  it  is  of 
highest  delight  to  learn  that  the  love  which  is  the  soul  of 
marriage  descends  from  the  union  of  the  Divine  Love  with 
the  Divine  Wisdom,  and  is  as  eternal  as  the  human  soul ;  to 
gain  an  insight  into  the  lovely  mysteries  of  the  union  of  affec- 
tion and  thought,  of  good  and  truth ;  and  to  be  told  of  the 
peace  and  happiness  that  attend  the  marriage  union,  not 
made  by  man  but  given  by  the  Lord,  among  the  angels  in 
heaven. 

He  who  loves  to  learn  of  the  purity  and  sanctity  of  marriage 
may  find  in  this  book  all  that  he  seeks.  And  yet  to  many  it 
has  been  a  stumbling-block,  for  the  reason  that  in  the  latter 
part  discrimination  is  made  as  to  the  degree  of  wrong  in  de- 
partures from  the  order  of  marriage.  Some  of  these  errors 
are  regarded  as  less  harmful  than  others,  and  not  unpardon- 
able under  circumstances  of  apparent  necessity, —  though  it 
is  expressly  stated  that  these  things  are  not  said  to  those  who 
are  able  to  restrain  their  lust,  nor  to  those  who  are  blessed 
with  marriage.  No  one  can  be  troubled  by  the  charity  here 
shown  for  the  unfortunate,  unless  with  the  fear  that  it  may  be 
abused,  to  make  inexcusable  wrong  venial. 

This  result  would  be  most  unfortunate,  but  could  hardly 


CONJUGIAL  LOVE.  307 

have  been  prevented.  The  charity,  the  mercy  of  the  Divine 
Providence  in  discriminating  as  to  the  degree  of  guilt  in  our 
various  departures  from  rectitude,  in  making  us  suffer  less 
for  the  lighter  than  we  do  for  the  more  grievous,  is  abused 
in  the  same  way.  No  dealings  with  sinners  can  be  Christian 
that  are  not  considerate  and  discriminating.  This  treatise  of 
Swedenborg  did  not  purport  to  treat,  like  his  other  works, 
of  theology,  doctrine,  drawn  from  the  Word  by  means  of  light 
given  from  the  Lord,  "but  chiefly  of  morals,"  that  is,  of  the 
manners  and  duties  of  men,  with  illustration  from  the  light  of 
heaven.  Naturally  the  immediate  application  of  the  second 
part  was  to  the  society  of  Europe  at  the  time  it  was  written ; 
and  for  this  state  of  society,  even  in  its  concessions  to  human 
weakness,  it  held  up  an  advanced  though  not  unapproach- 
able standard.1 

It  would  be  a  total  misapprehension  and  abuse  to  take  any 
advantage  of  such  humane  concession,  for  the  lowering  of 
the  standard  in  our  own  more  favored,  more  Puritan  country 
and  age.  The  proper  use  to  us  of  the  discussion  of  the  sins 
against  the  true  marriage  relation  is,  on  the  one  hand,  to  put 
us  on  our  guard  against  the  sinfulness  of  our  human  nature ; 
and  on  the  other  to  inspire  us  with  discriminating  charity  and 
mercy  in  our  judgment  of  those  less  fortunate  in  their  home, 
their  time,  or  their  circumstances.  Many  things  have  been 
permitted  of  the  Divine  Providence  on  account  of  the  hard- 
ness of  our  hearts,  which  yet  from  the  beginning  were  not  so. 
Each  new  revelation  of  the  Divine  order  requires  a  higher 
degree  of  purity,  a  nearer  approach  to  the  Divine  perfection  ; 
and  to  this  rule  the  teachings  given  through  Swedenborg  in 
regard  to  marriage  form  no  exception.  Of  the  heavenly  idea 
of  conjugial  love  taught  in  the  book  on  that  subject,  the  fol- 
lowing passage  will  give  some  impression  :  — 

"There  is  given  love  truly  conjugial,  which  at  this  day 

1  It  is  not  pleasant  to  know,  but  is  a  help  in  understanding  the  conditions 
under  which  the  book  was  written,  that  even  a  century  later  the  proportion  of 
legitimate  children  born  in  Stockholm  was  but  five  in  seven. 


308  DOCTRINAL  TREATISES. 

is  so  rare  that  it  is  not  known  what  it  is,  and  scarce  that  it 
exists.  .  .  .  No  others  come  into  this  love  and  can  be  in 
it  but  those  who  come  to  the  Lord  and  love  the  truths  of  the 
Church  and  do  its  good  works.  .  .  .  That  no  others  can 
be  in  love  truly  conjugial  but  they  who  receive  it  from  the 
Lord,  who  are  those  that  come  directly  to  Him  and  live  the 
life  of  the  Church  from  Himself,  is  because  this  love,  con- 
sidered in  its  origin  and  its  correspondence,  is  heavenly, 
spiritual,  holy,  pure,  and  clean,  above  every  love  which  is 
with  the  angels  of  heaven  and  the  men  of  the  Church.  And 
these  its  attributes  cannot  be  given  but  to  those  who  are 
conjoined  to  the  Lord,  and  from  Him  consociated  with  the 
angels  of  heaven ;  for  these  shun  loves  outside  of  marriage, 
which  are  conjunctions  with  others  than  their  own  proper 
consorts,  as  the  loss  of  the  soul  and  the  lakes  of  hell ;  and  in 
proportion  as  consorts  shun  such  conjunctions,  even  as  to  lusts 
of  the  will  and  intentions,  so  far  love  truly  conjugial  is  purified 
with  them,  and  becomes  successively  spiritual,  first  while  they 
live  on  earth,  and  afterwards  in  heaven.  Neither  with  men 
nor  with  angels  can  any  love  be  pure,  consequently  neither 
can  this  love ;  but  because  the  intention  which  is  of  the  will 
is  primarily  regarded  by  the  Lord,  therefore,  so  far  as  man  is 
in  this  intention  and  perseveres  in  it,  so  far  he  is  initiated  and 
successively  advances  into  its  purity  and  sanctity.  .  .  .  That 
they  come  into  this  love  and  can  be  in  it  who  love  the  truths 
of  the  Church  and  do  its  good  works,  is  because  no  others 
are  received  of  the  Lord ;  for  these  are  in  conjunction  with 
Himself,  and  thence  can  be  held  in  that  love  from  Himself." 
(C.L.  57-72.) 

After  publishing  this  work  on  Conjugial  Love,  Swedenborg 
entered  on  the  task  of  presenting  in  complete  form  the  Doc- 
trine of  the  New  Church,  as  already  promised.  But  he  says, 
"  As  this  is  the  work  of  several  years,  I  have  deemed  it  useful 
to  publish  meanwhile  a  sort  of  outline  of  it,  in  order  that  a 
general  idea  of  that  Church  and  its  Doctrine  may  first  be  ob- 
tained ;  for  when  the  generals  precede,  all  the  particulars  as 


BRIEF   EXPOSITION. 


309 


they  exist  in  the  whole  breadth  can  appear  in  light,  since  they 
enter  into  the  general,  as  homogeneous  things  into  their  re- 
ceptacles." This  is  from  the  preface  to  A  Brief  Exposition 
of  the  Doctrine  of  the  New  Church  which  is  meant  by  the 
New  Jerusalem  in  the  Apocalypse,  "by  Emanuel  Swedenborg, 
of  Sweden,"  published  in  Latin  in  a  thin  quarto  in  1769, 
and  at  the  same  time  also  in  English.  Of  this  little  book  the 
author  says,  in  a  letter  to  Dr.  Beyer, — 

"This  treatise  was  sent  by  me  to  all  the  clergy  in  Holland, 
and  will  come  into  the  hands  of  the  most  eminent  in  Ger- 
many. I  have  been  informed  that  they  have  attentively 
perused  it,  and  that  some  have  already  discovered  the  truth, 
while  others  do  not  know  which  way  to  turn ;  for  what  is 
written  therein  is  sufficient  to  convince  any  one  that  the 
above-mentioned  doctrine  [justification  by  faith  alone]  is  the 
cause  of  our  having  at  the  present  day  no  theology  in  Chris- 
tendom." On  the  reverse  of  the  titlepage  are  the  words,  in 
Latin  :  "I,  John,  saw  the  Holy  City,  New  Jerusalem,  coming 
down  from  God  out  of  heaven,  prepared  as  a  bride  adorned 
for  her  husband.  .  .  .  And  He  that  sat  upon  the  throne 
said,  Behold  I  make  all  things  new.  And  He  said  unto 
me,  Write ;  for  these  words  are  true  and  faithful."  (Rev. 
xxi.  2,  5.) 

At  the  beginning,  as  in  The  Apocalypse  Revealed,  the  author 
presents  the  doctrines  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  from 
the  decrees  of  the  Council  of  Trent,  and  those  of  the  Pro- 
testant Churches  from  the  Formula  Concordice.  He  next 
shows  briefly  that  all  the  Protestant  Churches,  though  differ- 
ing in  some  matters,  agree  in  the  doctrines  of  the  trinity  of 
persons,  of  original  sin,  of  the  imputation  of  the  merit  of 
Christ,  and  of  justification  by  faith  alone ;  that  in  these  they 
have  only  adopted  the  doctrines  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church,  with  the  change  —  as  Luther  confessed,  for  the  sake 
of  distinction  —  of  separating  charity  and  good  works  from 
faith,  and  yet  adding  good  works,  as  in  a  passive  subject, 
while  the  Catholics  add  them  as  in  an  active  subject ;  that 


3IO  DOCTRINAL  TREATISES. 

the  whole  theology  of  the  day  was  founded  on  the  idea  of 
three  Gods,  arising  from  that  of  a  trinity  of  persons,  and  that 
the  dogmas  are  seen  to  be-erroneous  as  soon  as  the  idea  of 
three  persons  is  rejected  and  the  idea  of  One  God,  in  whom 
is  a  Divine  Trinity,  is  received  in  its  place ;  that  then  faith 
really  saving,  which  rests  in  one  God,  united  with  good  works, 
is  acknowledged  and  received ;  and  that  this  faith  is  in  God 
the  Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  and  in  its  simple  form  is  as  follows  : 

1.  That  there  is  one  God,  in  whom  is  a  Divine  Trinity, 
and  that  He  is  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

2.  That  saving  faith  is  to  believe  in  Him. 

3.  That  evils  are  to  be  shunned  because  they  are  of  the 
Devil  and  from  the  Devil. 

4.  That  good  works  are  to  be  done  because  they  are  of 
God  and  from  God. 

5.  And  that  these  things  are  to  be  done  by  man  as  by  him- 
self, but  that  it  is  to  be  believed  that  they  are  done  by  the 
Lord  with  him  and  through  him. 

Such  in  simple  form  is  the  pure,  rational,  Scriptural  doc- 
trine, descending  from  God  out  of  His  New  Heaven  for  His 
New  Church  to  be  established  on  earth.  To  appreciate  its 
simplicity,  its  beauty,  its  efficacy,  its  divinity,  one  needs  to 
have  been  led  up  to  it,  as  Swedenborg  was  led,  step  by  step, 
out  of  the  tangle  and  fog  of  the  old  creeds  of  human  origin, 
and  then  to  see  it,  as  he  saw  it,  descending  from  God  out  of 
heaven.  No  wonder  that  heaven  rejoiced  when  it  was  pub- 
lished on  earth,  appearing  to  Swedenborg  rose-colored  and 
wreathed  with  roses,  and  that  Adventus  Domini,  the  Coming 
of  the  Lord,  was  written  with  his  own  hand  on  more  than 
one  copy  of  the  book. 

After  the  enunciation  of  the  Doctrine,  follows  an  elucida- 
tion of  points  in  which  the  doctrines  of  the  day  are  at  vari- 
ance with  it.  Then  it  is  shown  that  their  darkness  is  the 
darkening  of  the  sun  foretold  in  Matthew ;  that  those  in  faith 
alone  are  described  by  the  goats  in  Matthew,  and  by  the 
dragon  and  other  signs  in  the  Apocalypse;  that  unless  a 


THE  FAITH  OF  THE  NEW  CHURCH.       311 

New  Church  should  be  established,  none  could  be  saved ; 
that  the  rejection  of  the  old  dogmas  and  the  reception  of  the 
new  faith  is  what  is  meant  by  all  things  being  made  new ; 
that  the  New  Church  to  be  established  by  the  Lord  is  the 
New  Jerusalem,  and  the  Bride,  the  Lamb's  Wife ;  that  the 
new  faith  cannot  make  one  with  the  old,  but  there  will  be 
collision;  that  at  present  the  Roman  Catholics  in  general 
know  nothing  about  their  dogmas,  these  being  hidden  under 
their  forms  of  worship,  and  so  far  as  they  approach  the  Lord 
as  their  Saviour  can  come  into  the  faith  of  the  New  Church 
more  easily  than  the  Reformed.  In  conclusion,  this  Brief 
Exposition  gives  "by  way  of  Appendix"  what  also  forms  the 
introduction  to  the  full  work  contemplated,  The  True  Chris- 
tian Religion,  a  further  statement  of  "  The  Faith  of  the  New 
Heaven  and  the  New  Church"  in  universal  and  in  particular 
form,  as  follows  :  — 

THE  FAITH  OF  THE  NEW  HEAVEN  AND  THE  NEW  CHURCH. 

"i.  THE  FAITH,  in  a  universal  and  a  particular  form,  is 
prefixed,  that  it  may  be  as  a  face  before  the  work  which  fol- 
lows ;  and  as  a  gate,  through  which  entrance  is  made  into  a 
temple ;  and  a  summary,  in  which  are  contained  in  their 
measure  the  particulars  which  follow.  It  is  said  the  '  Faith 
of  the  New  Heaven  and  the  New  Church,'  because  heaven 
where  angels  are  and  the  Church  in  which  men  are  act  as 
one,  as  the  internal  and  the  external  with  man.  Thence  it  is 
that  the  man  of  the  Church  who  is  in  the  good  of  love  from 
the  truths  of  faith,  and  in  the  truths  of  faith  from  the  good  of 
love,  is  as  to  the  interiors  of  his  mind  an  angel  of  heaven ; 
wherefore  also,  after  death,  he  comes  into  heaven  and  there 
enjoys  happiness  according  to  the  state  of  their  conjunction. 
It  is  to  be  known  that  in  the  New  Heaven,  which  is  being 
established  at  this  day  by  the  Lord,  there  is  this  Faith  as  its 
face,  gate,  and  summary. 

"  2.  THE  FAITH  OF  THE  NEW  HEAVEN  AND  THE  NEW 
CHURCH  IN  UNIVERSAL  FORM  is  this :  That  the  Lord  from 


312  DOCTRINAL  TREATISES. 

eternity,  who  is  Jehovah,  came  into  the  world  that  He  might 
subjugate  the  hells  and  glorify  His  human ;  and  that  without 
this  no  one  of  mortals  could  be  saved ;  and  that  they  are 
saved  who  believe  in  Him. 

"It  is  said  'in  universal  form '  because  this  is  the  universal 
of  faith,  and  the  universal  of  faith  is  what  must  be  in  all  and 
each  of  the  particulars.  It  is  a  universal  of  faith  that  God  is 
One  in  essence  and  in  person,  in  whom  is  a  Divine  Trinity, 
and  that  the  Lord  God  the  Saviour  Jesus  Christ  is  He.  It  is 
a  universal  of  faith  that  no  one  of  mortals  could  be  saved, 
unless  the  Lord  had  come  into  the  world.  It  is  a  universal 
of  faith  that  He  came  into  the  world  that  He  might  remove 
hell  from  man,  and  that  He  did  remove  it  by  combats  against 
it  and  by  victories  over  it :  thus  He  subjugated  it  and  re- 
duced it  to  order  and  under  obedience  to  Himself.  It  is  a 
universal  of  faith  that  He  came  into  the  world  that  He  might 
glorify  His  Human  which  He  took  upon  Himself  in  the 
world,  that  is,  might  unite  it  to  the  Divine  from  which  [He 
came]  ;  thus  He  holds  hell  in  order  and  under  obedience  to 
Himself.  Since  this  could  not  be  done  except  by  tempta- 
tions admitted  into  His  Human,  even  to  the  last,  and  the 
last  was  the  passion  of  the  cross,  therefore  He  underwent 
that.  These  are  the  universals  of  faith  concerning  the  Lord. 

"A  universal  of  faith  on  the  part  of  man  is,  that  he  believe 
in  the  Lord ;  for  by  believing  in  Him  there  is  effected  con- 
junction with  Him,  by  which  is  salvation.  To  believe  in  Him 
is  to  have  confidence  that  He  will  save  ;  and  because  no  one 
can  have  this  confidence,  except  he  who  lives  well,  therefore 
this  also  is  meant  by  believing  in  Him.  This  the  Lord  also 
says,  in  John  :  This  is  the  will  of  the  Father,  that  every  one 
who  believeth  in  the  Son  may  have  eternal  life  (vi.  40) ;  and 
in  another  place,  He  who  believeth  in  the  Son  hath  eternal 
life  ;  but  he  who  believeth  not  the  Son  shall  not  see  life,  but  the 
wrath  of  God  abideth  on  him  (iii.  36). 

"3.  THE  FAITH  OF  THE  NEW  HEAVEN  AND  THE  NEW 
CHURCH  IN  PARTICULAR  FORM  is  this :  That  Jehovah  God  is 


THE  FAITH   OF   THE  NEW  CHURCH.  313 

Love  Itself  and  Wisdom  Itself,  or  that  He  is  Good  Itself 
and  Truth  Itself,  and  that  He  Himself  descended  as  to  the 
Divine  Truth  which  is  the  Word  and  which  was  God  with 
God,  and  assumed  the  Human,  for  the  sake  of  the  end  that 
He  might  reduce  into  order  all  things  which  were  in  heaven 
and  all  things  which  were  in  hell  and  all  things  which  were 
in  the  Church  :  since  at  that  time  the  power  of  hell  prevailed 
over  the  power  of  heaven,  and  on  the  earth  the  power  of  evil 
over  the  power  of  good,  and  thereby  total  damnation  stood 
before  the  door  and  threatened.  This  impending  damnation 
Jehovah  God  took  away  by  means  of  His  Human,  which  was 
the  Divine  Truth,  and  thus  redeemed  angels  and  men.  And 
afterwards  in  His  Human  He  united  the  Divine  Truth  to  the 
Divine  Good,  or  the  Divine  Wisdom  to  the  Divine  Love, 
and  thus  returned  into  His  Divine  in  which  He  was  from 
eternity,  together  with  and  in  His  glorified  Human.  These 
things  are  meant  by  this  passage  in  John, — The  Word  was 
with  God  and  God  was  the  Word ;  and  the  Word  became 
flesh  (i.  i,  14)  ;  and  in  the  same,  —  /  went  forth  from  the 
Father  and  came  into  the  world;  again  I  leave  the  world 
and  go  to  the  Father  (xvi.  28);  and  also  by  this,  —  We 
kno7v  that  the  Son  of  God  hath  come  and  given  us  under- 
standing that  we  may  know  Him  that  is  true,  and  we  are 
in  Him  that  is  true,  in  His  Son  Jesus  Christ;  this  is  the 
true  God  and  eternal  life  (i  John  v.  20).  From  these  things 
it  is  evident  that  without  the  coming  of  the  Lord  into  the 
world  no  one  could  be  saved.  The  like  is  the  case  to-day ; 
wherefore,  unless  the  Lord  come  again  into  the  world  in  the 
Divine  Truth,  which  is  the  Word,  no  one  can  be  saved. 

"  The  particulars  of  faith  on  the  part  of  man  are  :  First, 
That  God  is  One,  in  whom  is  a  Divine  Trinity,  and  that  He 
is  the  Lord  God  the  Saviour  Jesus  Christ.  Second,  That 
saving  faith  is  to  believe  in  Him.  Third,  That  evil  deeds  are 
not  to  be  done,  because  they  are  of  the  Devil  and  from  the 
Devil.  Fourth,  That  good  works  are  to  be  done,  because 
they  are  of  God  and  from  God.  Fifth,  And  that  these  are  to 


314  DOCTRINAL   TREATISES. 

be  done  by  man  as  by  himself;  but  that  it  is  to  be  believed 
that  they  are  done  by  the  Lord  with  him  and  through  him. 
The  first  two  are  of  faith,  the  last  two  are  of  charity ;  and  the 
fifth  is  of  the  conjunction  of  charity  and  faith,  thus  of  the 
Lord  and  man." 

A  century  ago,  when  first  published,  this  doctrine  would 
have  been  pronounced  heretical,  not  only  in  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  but  in  all  of  the  Evangelical  Churches  of 
Christendom.  At  the  present  day  there  may  be  found  emi- 
nent preachers  in  every  Evangelical  Church  who  will  declare 
that  this  doctrine  is  their  own,  and  who  do  not  hesitate  to 
preach  it,  according  to  their  understanding  of  it,  from  their 
pulpits.  We  may  go  farther  :  there  is  no  eminent  advanced 
theologian  of  the  day  whose  positions  are  not  approximating 
to  those  of  the  New  Church,  as  laid  down  by  Swedenborg. 
In  other  words,  the  whole  progress  of  religious  thought  since 
Swedenborg's  time  has  been  in  the  direction  of  the  standards 
raised  by  him.  This  is  palpably  true  in  regard  to  the  Trinity, 
Free-will,  Salvation,  and  the  Life  after  death.  The  one  great 
subject  on  which  little  advance  is  made,  is  the  interpretation 
of  the  Sacred  Scriptures.  As  to  this,  a  good  degree  of  pre- 
paration is  being  made  in  the  recognition  of  the  whole  as  of 
one  plan,  with  spiritual  application  of  every  part  to  all  men.1 
But  the  means  of  interpretation  used  by  Swedenborg,  the 
correspondence  of  all  worldly  things  with  spiritual  things, 
can  hardly  be  known,  and  cannot  be  used  to  good  purpose, 
except  through  such  revelation  as  was  given  to  him,  and 
by  him  to  the  world. 

After  the  "  Brief  Exposition  "  a  few  little  tracts  were  pub- 
lished, partly  in  reply  to  letters,  on  doctrinal  points  :  "  On 
the  Intercourse  of  the  Soul  and  Body ; "  "An  Answer  to  a 
Letter  written  to  me  by  a  Friend"  [Rev.  Thomas  Hartley]  ; 
"Answers  to  Nine  Questions  proposed  by  Thomas  Hartley 
to  Emanuel  Swedenborg."  The  last-named  was  first  printed 
by  Mr.  Robert  Hindmarsh  in  1785,  though  written  in  the  year 

1  Appendix  III. 


THE   TRUE   CHRISTIAN    RELIGION.  ,        315 

the  others  were  printed,  1769.  The  same  year  was  written 
The  Canons  of  the  New  Church,  or  the  Entire  Theology  of 
the  New  Church.  This  small  work  was  not  published  by  the 
author,  but  served  him  as  the  basis  or  first  draught  of  the 
more  important  work  that  was  to  follow.  Its  introduction, 
however,  is  very  suitable  for  us  in  this  place  :  — • 

"The  New  Church  could  not  be  instituted  before  the  last 
judgment  had  been  accomplished,  because  otherwise  holy 
things  would  have  been  profaned.  It  was  promised  that  the 
spiritual  sense  of  the  Word  would  then  be  disclosed,  and  the 
coming  of  the  Lord,  who  is  the  Word,  would  take  place. 
The  reason  why  but  few  at  the  present  day  have  religion  is  : 
First,  because  it  is  not  known  that  the  Lord  is  the  Only  God 
who  rules  heaven  and  earth ;  and  thus  that  He  is  God  in 
person  and  in  essence,  in  whom  is  a  Trinity :  when  yet  the 
whole  of  religion  is  based  on  the  knowledge  of  God,  and  on 
His  adoration  and  worship.  Second,  because  it  is  not  known 
that  faith  is  nothing  else  but  truth ;  and  because  it  is  not 
known  whether  that  which  is  called  faith  is  truth,  or  not. 
Third,  because  it  is  not  known  what  charity  is,  nor  conse- 
quently what  good  and  evil  are.  Fourth,  because  it  is  not 
known  what  eternal  life  is.  In  proportion  as  the  truths  of 
life  are  made  matters  of  life,  in  the  same  proportion  the 
truths  of  faith  become  matters  of  faith ;  and  it  is  not  possible 
for  them  to  become  such  in  any  other  way.  Some  things 
are  matters  of  knowledge  and  not  of  faith." 

In  1771  Swedenborg  completed  and  published  his  prom- 
ised crowning  work,  as  in  fact  it  was  the  last  year  of  his  life. 
Its  title  translated  is  The  True  Christian  Religion,  containing 
the  Universal  Theology  of  the  New  Church  foretold  by  the 
Lord  in  Daniel,  chap.  vii.  13,  14,  and  in  the  Apocalypse,  chap. 
xxi.  i,  2.  "ByEmanuel  Swedenborg,  Servant  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ."  The  author  had  a  desire  to  publish  it  at  Paris, 
but  obtaining  permission  from  the  censor  only  on  condition 
that  it  should  bear  the  false  imprint  of  London  or  Amster- 


316  DOCTRINAL  TREATISES. 

dam,  he  scorned  the  evasion  and  published  it  at  Amsterdam.1 
The  original  edition  is  in  one  quarto  volume.  The  English 
editions  have  from  one  to  three  volumes.  To  give  a  full  idea 
of  the  contents  would  exceed  our  limits.  Whoever  would 
know  in  full  what  the  doctrines  of  the  New  Church  really  are 
should  read  the  book.  Their  summary,  contained  in  the 
Introduction,  we  have  already  given.  The  subjects  of  the 
chapters  are  as  follows  :  — 

i.  God,  the  Creator.  2.  The  Lord,  the  Redeemer.  3. 
The  Holy  Spirit,  and  The  Divine  Operation.  4.  The  Sacred 
Scripture,  or  Word  of  the  Lord.  5.  The  Catechism  or 
Decalogue  explained  as  to  its  external  and  internal  sense.  6. 
Faith.  7.  Charity,  or  Love  to  the  Neighbor;  and  Good 
Works.  8.  Free  Agency.  9.  Repentance.  10.  Reforma- 
tion and  Regeneration,  n.  Imputation.  12.  Baptism.  13. 
The  Holy  Supper.  14.  The  Consummation  of  the  Age; 
the  Coming  of  the  Lord ;  and  the  New  Church. 

At  the  close  of  the  chapters  "Memorable  Relations"  are 
added,  illustrating  the  subject  matter  by  things  heard  and 
seen  in  the  other  world,  as  in  The  Apocalypse  Revealed  and 
Conjugial  Love.  Indeed  some  of  the  relations  are  the  same 
as  before  given  in  those  works,  and  much  of  the  other  mate- 
rial of  the  work  is  the  same  as  had  been  previously  printed  in 
smaller  works,  while  the'  whole  arrangement  and  the  greater 
part  of  the  matter  are  new.  , 

In  style  we  notice  an  increased  maturity  and  clearness  of 
expression,  a  fondness  for  practical  illustration,  and  an  over- 
flowing goodness  of  heart  that  would  fain  impress  upon  his 
readers  what  is  necessary  for  their  salvation,  thus  endearing 
the  book  to  all  who  accept  its  doctrine. 

As  to  the  style  of  Swedenborg's  theological  works,  however, 
there  should  perhaps  be  a  word  said  for  the  benefit  of  unac- 

1  Singularly,  an  aged  Paris  bookseller  told  the  Rev.  J.  H.  Smithson,  in  1826, 
that  some  fifty  years  before,  he  had  met  with  The  True  Christian  Religion, 
and  thinking  it  a  very  curious  book  had  sent  to  Amsterdam  and  bought  up  all 
the  copies  he  could  find.  So  in  fact  the  work  had  always  been  for  sale  in  Paris, 
and  a  few  copies  were  still  on  hand.  English  Ed.  J.FJ.TafeFs  Documents,  1 15. 


SWEDENBORG'S   TERMS.  317 

customed  ears,  to  whom  it  is  strange.  A  part  of  the  awk- 
wardness in  English  has  been  due  to  the  unskilfulness  of 
translators.  But  with  utmost  skill  it  is  impossible  to  render 
Swedenborg's  language  into  familiar  English,  without  loss  of 
meaning.  The  simple  reason  is  that  his  meaning,  being 
spiritual  and  reaching  beyond  time  and  space,  can  be  ade- 
quately expressed  only  by  abstract  terms  of  indefinite  appli- 
cation ;  in  short  by  adjectives,  and  these  often  of  new  coin- 
age or  with  new  meaning.  This  use  of  the  Latin  language  is 
not  awkward,  nor  new.  The  mediaeval  and  later  philosophers 
had  fitted  the  language  to  Swedenborg's  hand.  But  in  Eng- 
lish the  use  is  new  and  strange ;  and  there  is  no  help  for  it, 
but  to  get  accustomed  to  it :  then  there  is  no  trouble. 

One  of  Swedenborg's  oldest  living  translators,  Dr.  Wilkin- 
son, has  recently  declared  that  he  at  first  "  had  the  feeling 
that  it  would  be  easy  and  right  to  popularize  him  somewhat, 
and  to  melt  down  his  Proprium  and  his  Scientifics,  his  Goods 
and  Truths  and  Uses,  and  many  other  of  his  terms."  But  at 
last,  he  says,  he  learned  to  come  close  to  his  author's  terms, 
and  as  far  as  possible  get  into  the  marrow  of  them  ;  and  then 
he  did  not  want  to  melt  them  down,  but  felt  sure  "  that  they 
are  a  genuine  coinage  which  the  reader,  when  he  learns  it, 
will  never  wish  to  see  defaced  in  any  the  least  lineament,  lest 
a  value  which  is  priceless  be  lost  or  altered  thereby.  .  .  . 
Furthermore,  doctrinal  statements  involve  the  use  of  terms, 
indeed,  technical  terms ;  and  where  the  teaching,  the  truths, 
are  new  to  the  mind,  the  creation  of  new  technical  terms  to 
express  them.  Accordingly,  Swedenborg's  works  are  techni- 
cal so  far  as  it  is  necessary,  and  the  terms  he  employs  are  the 
ultimate  basis  of  his  doctrines.  ...  No  man  has  brought  his 
communication  of  ideas  to  greater  definition.  Coleridge  said 
to  the  late  Mr.  Charles  Augustus  Tulk,  that  were  he  writing 
a  treatise  on  logic,  he  should  select  instances  from  Sweden- 
borg's works,  so  perfect  did  he  regard  them  as  chains  of  rea- 
soning. But  Swedenborg  has  a  merit  which  transcends  logic. 
The  fountains  and  principles  from  which  the  stream  flows  are 


318  DOCTRINAL  TREATISES. 

divinely  true ;   and  they  are  signalized  by  adequate  terms 
which  contain  them,  sum  them  up,  and  send  them  forth." 1 

As  The  True  Christian  Religion  was  the  last  treatise  com- 
pleted by  Swedenborg,  this  is  the  fitting  place  to  review  the 
nature  of  his  mission.  The  mission  was  to  unfold  the  interior 
senses  of  the  Word  and  draw  from  it  true  doctrine,  making  its 
light  to  appear  before  men,  whereby  they  might  see  in  it,  as 
in  the  clouds  of  heaven,  the  face  of  their  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 
This  enlightenment  of  minds  was  to  be  the  intellectual  part  of 
the  Lord's  promised  second  coming,  the  voluntary  part  being 
the  acceptance  in  the  heart  of  His  Spirit ;  the  one  being  the 
means  and  complement  of  the  other.  The  enlightenment,  as 
well  as  the  grace  of  heart,  is  from  tfie  Lord  alone  ;  but  since, 
as  we  have  seen  (p.  246),  the  degree  of  enlightenment  de- 
pends also  on  the  knowledge  of  both  spiritual  and  natural 
things  stored  in  the  mind,  together  with  the  development  of 
the  power  of  reason,  Swedenborg  was  prepared  intellectually 
for  his  work,  first,  by  vast  training  and  acquirements  in  the 
knowledge  and  philosophic  discussion  of  natural  things,  and 
second,  by  unprecedented  experience  of  spiritual  things. 
Nor  perhaps  was  the  experience  of  the  heart  less  remarkable, 
whereby  it  was  released  from  the  bonds  of  self  and  selfish 
spiritual  association.  The  preparation  was,  indeed,  such  that 
Swedenborg  would  certainly  have  soon  entered  upon  the  very 
work  designed  for  him,  of  apparently  his  own  determination, 
if  the  Lord  had  not  revealed  to  him  that  the  preparation  and 
the  purpose  were  His,  and  that  the  work  must  be  done  in 
His  name,  with  Him  alone  for  guide.  Thus  armed  and  pro- 
tected, it  was  permitted  Swedenborg  to  see  plainly  the  spirits 
and  angels  about  him  and  to  whom  he  came,  and  to  learn 
from  them  innumerable  things  about  their  world,  which  served 
him  as  aids  in  receiving  enlightenment  from  the  Lord  in  His 
Word.  Innumerable  things  he  was  permitted  to  relate  for 

1  Address  at  the  Seventy-second  Anniversary  of  the  Swedenborg  Society: 
London,  1882. 


THE   MISSION   FULFILLED. 


319 


the  use  of  men ;  but  this  was  wholly  subsidiary  to  the  main 
purpose,  of  unfolding  the  interiors  of  the  Word. 

The  time  appointed  for  this  new  revelation  of  the  Lord  in 
His  Word  was  that  when  on  earth  His  Church,  relying  on 
and  perverting  the  literal  sense,  had  brought  its  usefulness 
about  to  an  end ;  when  the  newly-developed  reason  had 
asserted  its  own  rights  and  had  begun,  on  the  one  hand,  to 
declare  that  there  is  no  God,  and  on  the  other,  to  admit  its 
own  inability  to  discover  what  the  heart  knew  to  exist ;  when, 
by  aid  of  the  press  and  of  instruments  of  precision,  both  the 
Gospel  and  numerous  scientific  facts  were  in  the  hands  of 
the  people,  giving  a  groundwork  of  moral  and  mental  intelli- 
gence :  and  lastly  when,  as  we  learn  from  Swedenborg,  the 
world  of  spirits,  with  its  hordes  of  pretended  but  lying  and 
deceitful  Christians,  was  pressing  hard  upon  heaven  and  was 
ripe  for  judgment.  The  publication  on  earth  of  the  interior 
real  meaning  of  the  Word  —  not  in  its  fulness,  for  that  is  im- 
possible, but  in  so  much  as  an  enlightened  man  could  per- 
ceive and  express  in  his  own  language  —  was  the  ultimate 
basis,  or  fulcrum,  by  which  it  could  be  taught  and  enforced 
in  the  world  of  spirits,  and  was  in  so  far  a  means  by  which 
the  judgment  there  was  effected.  At  the  same  time  the  true 
doctrine  thus  drawn  from  the  Word  —  that  which  accords 
with  the  interior  heavenly  sense  —  was  revealed  as  the  doc- 
trine for  the  New  Church  on  earth,  as  it  is  that  of  the  New 
Heaven. 

The  mere  annunciation,  however,  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
New  Church,  in  formula,  was  not  enough.  This  Church  is 
not  to  be  a  Church  of  forms  or  of  creeds,  but  a  Church  for 
the  new  age  of  the  world,  the  mature  age,  when  the  matters 
of  faith  are  to  be  rationally  understood,  to  be  found  in  con- 
sonance with  sound  philosophy,  and  to  be  supported  and 
illustrated  by  all  things  in  heaven  and  earth. 

"  In  that  day  shall  there  be  a  highway  out  of  Egypt  to 
Assyria,  and  the  Assyrian  shall  come  into  Egypt,  and  the 
Egyptian  into  Assyria,  and  the  Egyptians  shall  serve  with  the 


32O  DOCTRINAL  TREATISES. 

Assyrians.  In  that  day  shall  Israel  be  the  third  with  Egypt 
and  with  Assyria,  even  a  blessing  in  the  midst  of  the  land ; 
whom  the  Lord  of  Hosts  shall  bless  saying,  Blessed  be 
Egypt  My  people,  and  Assyria  the  work  of  My  hands,  and 
Israel  Mine  inheritance."  (Isaiah  xix.  23-25.) 

Egypt  is  the  scientific  mind,  Assyria  is  the  rational  mind, 
and  Israel  is  the  spiritual  mind.  In  the  Church  that  is  to  be, 
the  scientific  mind  will  lead  the  way  up  into  the  rational 
mind,  and  the  rational  mind  into  the  spiritual  mind ;  the 
scientific  and  the  rational  will  be  recognized  in  their  place 
and  use  by  the  spiritual  mind,  and  the  spiritual  mind  will 
be  recognized  by  the  others  as  the  inheritance  of  the  Lord. 
The  scientific  mind  has  reached  a  high  pitch  of  development. 
The  rational  mind  is  not  far  behind.  The  development  of 
these  is  effected  as  of  the  man's  own  power  in  the  light  of 
nature,  without  recognized  Divine  guidance.  But  the  light 
of  the  spiritual  mind  is  Divine  light  itself,  which  cannot  enter 
except  in  humility  of  heart  with  acknowledgment  of  its  source. 
Its  doctrine,  though  it  be  gathered  with  laborious  scientific 
and  rational  research  from  the  Word  of  God,  is  yet  seen  to  be 
not  the  mind's  own,  but  given  it  from  God  out  of  heaven. 

It  was  with  this  full  acknowledgment,  this  clear  vision,  that 
Swedenborg  attached  to  the  titlepage  of  his  Brief  Exposition 
of  the  Doctrine  of  the  New  Church  the  verse  of  the  Apoca- 
lypse already  quoted,  and  that  to  the  same  verse  he  attached 
his  own  name  in  the  autograph  of  which  we  are  enabled  to 
present  a  fac-simile.1 

1  The  original  is  possessed  by  Mr.  Horace  P.  Chandler  of  Boston.  Proba- 
bly it  was  a  memento  to  a  friend,  perhaps  on  the  fly-leaf  of  a  book.  The  date  is 
but  a  year  and  a  half  before  Swedenborg's  death,  and  the  hand  is  feebler  than 
that  of  an  earlier  date.  On  the  same  day  he  wrote  to  Dr.  Beyer,  bidding  him 
farewell,  as  he  was  about  leaving  Stockholm  for  Amsterdam  to  publish  TJie 
True  Christian  Religion. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

CONCLUSION  OF   LIFE. —  FRIENDS   OF   LATER  YEARS. 

IN  the  few  months  of  life  remaining  after  this  last  work 
was  published,  Swedenborg  went  on  writing  and  preparing 
materials  for  an  Appendix,  or  Coronis,  treating  of  the  four 
Churches  which  had  already  existed  on  earth,  and  of  the 
New  Church  now  to  be  established.  But  his  work  in  this 
world  was  more  nearly  completed  than  he  knew.  Born  in 
1688,  he  was  now  in  his  eighty-fourth  year.  Though  of 
robust  constitution  and  extremely  simple  habits,  his  frame 
could  not  last  always.  He  had  exhausted  the  measure  of  his 
days  in  completing  the  work  given  him  to  do  in  this  world, 
—  a  work  which  in  its  spiritual  part  belonged  not  less  to  the 
other.  It  was  no  great  change  for  him  to  close  his  eyes 
once  more  for  all  time  to  this  world,  and  to  open  them  for 
eternity  in  the  world  where  for  twenty-seven  years  he  had 
been  not  less  at  home  than  here. 

It  would  be  very  pleasant  for  us  to  find  in  Swedenborg's 
diaries  some  account  of  the  spirits  and  angels  with  whom  he 
found  his  permanent  home  in  the  other  world.  In  his  later 
years  he  occasionally  speaks  of  belonging  to  a  heavenly  so- 
ciety, while  during  the  earlier  period  of  his  spiritual  inter- 
course he  appears  to  have  been  mostly  in  a  city  in  the  world 
of  spirits  answering  to  Stockholm ; l  but  we  do  not  find  any- 
thing more  definite  about  the  heavenly  society.  That  he  was 
in  very  different  spiritual  association  from  what  he  was  in 

1  Spiritual  Diary,  5721.  That  there  are  cities  in  the  world  of  spirits 
answering  to  the  cities  of  this  world,  see  S.  D.  5092-94. 

21 


322  CONCLUSION   OF  LIFE. 

earlier  life  is  plain  enough  from  the  tone  of  his  writings,  par- 
ticularly of  his  letters.  The  high-spirited,  impatient  ambition 
of  his  youth  is  gone.  In  place  there  is  all  gentleness  and 
love  and  trust  in  the  Providence  of  the  Lord,  from  which  it 
was  as  evident  to  his  friends  that  he  was  in  company  with 
angels,  as  it  had  been  to  his  father  when  in  infancy  they 
seemed  to  speak  through  his  mouth.  New  friends  on  earth, 
too,  had  gathered  about  him,  few  but  good,  attracted  by  the 
angelic  wisdom  that  now  unmistakably  flowed  from  his  tongue 
and  pen.  Such  a  friend  was  the  Rev.  Thomas  Hartley,  a 
clergyman  of  the  Church  of  England  and  rector  of  Winvvick, 
Northamptonshire.  Witness  the  following  letter,  written  in 
1769:  — 

"Most  respected  and  beloved  Sir, —  I  consider  myself  most  highly 
favored  and  I  rejoice  from  my  inmost  heart  in  having  had  the  honor, 
which  you  lately  granted  me,  of  conversing  with  you;  and  also  in  your 
having  been  so  kind  and  friendly  towards  me  who  am  quite  unworthy 
of  such  a  favor.  But  your  charity  towards  the  neighbor,  the  heavenly 
benignity  shining  from  your  countenance,  and  your  childlike  simplic- 
ity, devoid  of  all  vain  show  and  egotism,  are  so  great,  and  the  treas- 
ure of  wisdom  possessed  by  you  is  so  sweetly  tempered  with  gentle- 
ness, that  it  did  not  inspire  in  me  a  feeling  of  awe,  but  one  of  love, 
which  refreshed  me  in  my  innermost  heart.  Believe  me,  O  best  of 
men,  that  by  my  intercourse  with  you  I  consider  myself  crowned  with 
more  than  royal  favors ;  for  who  among  kings,  if  he  is  of  a  sane  mind, 
would  not  gladly  converse  with  an  inhabitant  of  heaven,  while  here  on 
earth  ?  But  the  things  which  are  hidden  from  the  great  men  upon 
earth  are  revealed  to  the  humble. 

"  In  speaking  with  you  every  suspicion  of  flattery  must  be  hushed. 
For  what  ground  for  flattery  can  there  be  when  I  attribute  everything 
in  you,  however  great  and  extraordinary  it  may  be,  to  the  Lord,  and 
not  to  yourself,  and  when  I  look  upon  you  only  as  an  instrument  of 
His  mercy  and  great  kindness  ?  But  may  I  be  permitted  to  offer  honor 
and  glory  to  the  instrument, —  for  this  is  well-pleasing  to  the  Lord ; 
and  may  I  be  permitted  to  tell  you  from  a  heart  full  of  gratitude,  that 
I  consider  myself  thrice  blessed  that  your  writings,  by  the  Divine  Pro- 
vidence, have  fallen  into  my  hands  ?  For  from  them,  as  from  a  living 
fountain,  I  have  drawn  so  many  things,  as  well  for  instruction  and 
edification  as  for  my  great  delight,  and  I  have  been  freed  by  them 
from  so  many  fears,  and  from  so  many  errors,  doubts,  and  opinions 
which  held  my  mind  in  perplexity  and  bondage,  that  I  seem  to  myself 


FRIENDS   AT   HOME. 


323 


sometimes  as  if  transferred  among  the  angels.  May  the  Lord,  the 
Highest  and  Best,  forbid  that  I  deceive  myself  with  a  vain  and  pre- 
mature hope ;  and  may  He  always  keep  me  in  a  state  of  humility  and 
repentance,  anxious  to  shun  all  evil  and  ready  to  do  all  good,  so  that 
I  may  safely  and  happily  reach  the  goal  of  our  destination  in  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ ! " 

The  writer  goes  on  to  ask  a  few  questions  as  to  doctrinal 
points,  and  then  begs  Swedenborg  to  give  him  some  state- 
ments about  himself  and  his  position  in  his  own  country,  to 
be  used  in  case  of  question ;  and  he  adds  that,  should  he  be 
in  danger  of  persecution  there  for  his  opinions,  he  will  be 
most  welcome  in  England,  where  a  home  with  all  comforts 
will  be  provided  for  him  by  Dr.  Messiter  and  himself. 

Swedenborg  in  reply  thanked  Mr.  Hartley  for  his  kindness 
and  friendship,  and  said,  —  "The  praises  with  which  you 
overwhelm  me,  I  receive  simply  as  expressions  of  your  love 
for  the  truths  contained  in  my  writings ;  and  I  refer  them  to 
the  Lord,  our  Saviour,  as  their  source,  from  whom  is  every- 
thing true,  because  He  is  the  Truth  Itself  (John  xiv.  6)." 
Then  giving  a  brief  account  of  his  family  and  position  in 
Sweden,  he  concluded  as  follows  :  — 

"  Moreover,  all  the  bishops  of  my  native  country,  who  are 
ten  in  number,  and  also  the  sixteen  senators,  and  the  rest  of 
those  highest  in  office,  entertain  feelings  of  affection  for  me ; 
from  their  affection  they  honor  me,  and  I  live  with  them  on 
terms  of  familiarity,  as  a  friend  among  friends, — the  reason  of 
which  is  that  they  know  I  am  in  company  with  angels.  Even 
the  King  and  the  Queen  and  the  three  princes,  their  sons, 
show  me  great  favor.  I  was  invited  once  by  the  King  and 
Queen  to  dine  with  them  at  their  own  table,  which  honor  is 
generally  accorded  only  to  those  who  are  highest  in  office ; 
subsequently  the  Crown  Prince  granted  me  the  same  favor. 
They  all  desire  me  to  return  home  ;  wherefore  I  am  far  from 
apprehending  in  my  own  country  that  persecution  which  you 
fear,  and  against  which  in  your  letter  you  desire  in  so  friendly 
a  manner  to  provide ;  and  if  they  choose  to  persecute  me 
elsewhere,  it  can  do  me  no  harm." 


324  CONCLUSION  OF  LIFE. 

Mr.  Hartley  remained  through  life  a  steadfast  friend  to 
Swedenborg,  and  showed  his  zeal  and  ability  by  translating 
and  prefacing  several  of  his  works  for  the  English  public. 
How  well  suited  he  was  to  appreciate  the  spirit  of  these  works 
we  may  judge,  not  only  from  his  own  letters  and  prefaces, 
but  also  from  what  is  said  of  him  in  the  published  diary  of 
religious  experience  of  Samuel  Scott,  "a  distinguished  mem- 
ber of  the  Society  of  Friends"  :  — 

"Fifth  month,  22,  1782. —  At  dinner  we  were  unexpectedly  visited 
by  our  ancient  friend,  Thomas  Hartley ;  probably  for  the  last  time, — 
he  appearing  to  be  much  emaciated,  and  his  countenance  languid  and 
meagre,  but  attended  with  a  fresh  and  lively  sense  of  vital  and  ex- 
perimental religion.  Retiring  with  him  from  some  company  who 
were  present,  he  expressed  himself  in  much  tenderness  of  spirit  to 
the  following  effect :  '  O  my  dear  friend !  I  have  lately  passed 
through  many  fiery  trials  and  deep  baptisms,  such  as  I  had  never 
before  fully  experienced :  all  the  secret  and  concealed  sins  of  my 
former  life,  even  many  which  had  passed  unnoticed,  have  been 
brought  to  light  and  set  in  order  before  me.  I  have  been  laid 
more  low  than  ever,  before  the  throne,  and  so  humbled  in  a  sense 
of  my  own  nothingness,  that  I  could  stoop  even  to  the  meanest  of  my 
fellow-creatures.  But  I  hope  these  severe  dispensations  have  been 
for  my  further  purification  and  meetness  for  that  rest  and  glory  which 
will  be  the  fruition  of  sanctified  spirits  to  all  eternity.'  In  the  year 
1776  I  was  introduced  to  a  personal  acquaintance  with  him,  by  a 
worthy  minister  in  our  own  Society,  and  esteem  the  same  one  of  the 
blessings  of  my  advanced  years,  for  which  I  am  accountable  to  the 
Author  of  every  good  gift.  He  lived  some  years  in  the  neighborhood 
of  Hertford  and  left  a  sweet  savor  behind  him,  both  among  rich  and 
poor.  It  was  my  lot  to  differ  much  from  him  in  my  natural  disposi- 
tion, and  also  in  some  points  to  which  he  was  much  attached ;  but  he 
sought  not  so  much  to  promote  the  sentimental  part  of  religion  as  the 
life  of  righteousness,  and  the  experimental  knowledge  of  the  cross  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  which  crucifies  the  corrupt  propensities  of 
fallen  nature  and  produces  the  fruits  of  the  spirit,  which  are  love, 
peace,  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost. 

"Eighth  month,  25,  1783. —  I  received  a  letter  from  our  dear  and 
worthy  friend,  Thomas  Hartley ;  who,  although  aged  and  infirm,  ap- 
pears to  retain  a  fresh  and  lively  sense  of  that  true  and  experimental 
religion  which  consists,  not  in  the  letter,  but  in  the  spirit,  and  of  that 
circumcision  which  is  inward. 

"  Twelfth  month,  20,  1784. — This  day  I  was  informed  of  the  decease 


THOMAS  HARTLEY. 


325 


of  my  dear  and  worthy  friend,  Thomas  Hartley,  who  departed  this 
life  the  loth  inst.  ...  He  was  a  man  of  unaffected  piety,  great  sin- 
cerity, and  exquisite  sensibility ;  deeply  suffering  under  a  sense  of  his 
own  defects  in  particular,  and  of  the  depravity  of  fallen  nature  in 
general ;  following  a  crucified  Saviour  in  the  regeneration,  according 
to  his  measure  :  there  is  abundant  cause  for  a  comfortable  hope  that 
he  now  rests  from  his  labors,  '  where  the  wicked  cease  from  troubling 
and  the  weary  are  at  rest.' " 

From  such  a  man  and  friend  as  this  Mr.  Hartley,  the  fol- 
lowing sentences  addressed  to  the  first  translator  of  The 
True  Christian  Religion,  the  Rev.  J.  Clowes,  are  of  much 
interest :  — 

"  The  great  Swedenborg  was  a  man  of  uncommon  humility,  and  so 
far  from  affecting  to  be  the  head  of  a  sect  that  his  voluminous  writ- 
ings in  divinity  continued  almost  to  the  end  of  his  life  to  be  anony- 
mous publications ;  and  I  have  some  reason  to  think  that  it  was  owing 
to  my  remonstrance  with  him  on  this  subject  that  he  was  induced  to 
prefix  his  name  to  this  his  last  work.  He  was  of  a  catholic  spirit 
and  loved  all  good  men  in  every  church,  making  at  the  same  time  all 
candid  allowance  for  the  innocency  of  involuntary  error ;  but  as  he 
found  himself  obliged  to  point  out  the  false  doctrines  in  the  several 
churches  with  an  impartial  freedom,  it  must  be  expected  that  his  writ- 
ings will  meet  with  opposition  from  bigots  in  all  churches.  .  .  .  Now, 
that  any  extraordinary  messenger  to  the  world,  faithful  to  his  commis- 
sion in  the  delivery  of  Divine  Truths,  without  respect  of  persons, 
should  meet  with  opposition,  is  so  far  from  being  any  just  cause  of 
offence  to  us,  that  it  should  serve  to  confirm  us  in  the  belief  of  his 
legation,  inasmuch  as  Divine  Truth  must  ever  be  contrary  to  the  in- 
clinations, maxims,  and  pursuits  of  a  degenerate  world,  the  reason- 
ings of  which  will  ever  be  according  to  its  governing  principles ;  and 
therefore  it  was  that  the  essential  Truth  of  God  in  the  person  of 
Christ  was  to  suffer  persecution.  But  wisdom  is  justified  of  her  chil- 
dren, even  such  as  have  their  hearts  turned  towards  God ;  and  in  res- 
pect to  such,  Truth  carries  in  it  native  evidence  and  conviction,  so  as 
to  supersede  the  necessity  of  argument,  according  to  those  words  of 
our  Lord,  '  If  any  man  will  do  His  will,  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine 
whether  it  be  of  God.' 

"  Our  author  ever  kept  the  Holy  Scriptures  in  view  ;  they  were  his 
light  and  guide,  his  shield  and  buckler  on  all  occasions ;  his  reason- 
ings are  grounded  on  their  authority,  and  he  is  abundantly  copious  in 
the  proofs  he  draws  from  them  in  support  of  whatever  doctrine  he 
advances.  On  this  foundation  he  builds,  and  a  surer  one  can  no  one 


326  CONCLUSION   OF  LIFE. 

lay ;  he  expounds  the  lively  oracles  by  their  harmonizing  sense  in  dif- 
ferent parts  of  them,  and  opens  their  spiritual  meaning  like  the  scribe 
instructed  unto  the  kingdom  of  heaven ;  and  of  this  he  has  in  particu- 
lar given  us  satisfying  evidence  in  his  exposition  of  the  Apocalypse. 

"  And  yet  let  it  be  remarked  here,  that  however  high  he  stands  in 
the  character  of  the  enlightened  divine,  however  zealous  he  appeared 
for  Truth  and  the  instruction  of  his  brethren,  and,  lastly,  however  self- 
denying  in  his  own  particular  case  as  to  gratifications  and  indulgences, 
even  within  the  bounds  of  moderation,  yet  nothing  severe,  nothing  of 
the  precisian,  appeared  in  him ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  an  inward  seren- 
ity and  complacency  of  mind  were  manifest  in  the  sweetness  of  his 
looks  and  outward  demeanor ;  and  in  his  writings  so  far  is  he  from 
affecting  any  stoical  stiffness  or  severity,  that  in  several  parts  of  them 
he  allows  to  Christian  liberty  its  full  scope,  and  nowhere  censures 
social  entertainments  -and  amusements  properly  conducted.  .  .  . 

"  It  may  reasonably  be  supposed  that  I  have  weighed  the  character 
of  our  illustrious  author  in  the  scale  of  my  best  judgment,  from  the 
personal  knowledge  I  had  of  him,  from  the  best  information  I  could 
procure  concerning  him,  and  from  a  diligent  perusal  of  his  writings ; 
and  according  thereto  I  have  found  him  to  be  the  sound  divine,  the 
good  man,  the  deep  philosopher,  the  universal  scholar,  and  the  polite 
gentleman ;  and  I  further  believe  that  he  had  a  high  degree  of  illumi- 
nation from  the  Spirit  of  God,  was  commissioned  by  Him  as  an  extra- 
ordinary messenger  to  the  world,  and  had  communication  with  angels 
and  the  spiritual  world  beyond  any  since  the  time  of  the  apostles." 

Together  with  Mr.  Hartley  should  be  mentioned  the  friend 
who  joined  with  him  in  offering  to  provide  Swedenborg  a 
home  in  England, —  Dr.  H.  Messiter,  "an  eminent  physician," 
according  to  Mr.  Hartley,  living  at  Fulham,  Middlesex.  He 
is  the  one  to  whom  Mr.  Hartley  refers  when  he  says  of  his  ac- 
quaintance with  Swedenborg, —  "  I  have  conversed  with  him 
at  different  times,  and  in  company  with  a  gentleman  of  a 
learned  profession  and  of  extensive  intellectual  abilities  :  we 
have  had  a  confirmation  of  these  things  from  his  own  mouth, 
and  have  received  his  testimony,  and  do  both  of  us  consider 
this  our  acquaintance  with  the  author  and  his  writings  among 
the  greatest  blessings  of  our  lives." 

Swedenborg's  confidence  in  Dr.  Messiter  is  shown  by 
his  requesting  him  to  send  some  of  his  theological  works  to 
the  Professors  of  Divinity  in  the  Scottish  universities.  In 


DR.  MESSITER.  327 

Dr.  Messiter's  letter  "  to  the  Professor  of  Divinity  at  Edin- 
burgh" (Robert  Hamilton),  he  says,  — 

"  As  I  have  had  the  honor  of  being  frequently  admitted  to  the  au- 
thor's company  when  he  was  in  London,  and  to  converse  with  him  on 
various  points  of  learning,  I  will  venture  to  affirm  that  there  are  no 
parts  of  mathematical,  philosophical,  or  medical  knowledge, —  nay,  I 
believe  I  might  justly  say,  of  human  literature, —  to  which  he  is  in  the 
least  a  stranger  ;  yet  so  totally  insensible  is  he  of  his  own  merit  that 
I  am  confident  he  does  not  know  he  has  any ;  and,  as  himself  some- 
where says  of  the  angels,  he  always  turns  his  head  away  on  the  slight- 
est encomium.  What  he  knows  of  the  most  interesting  and  noble 
science  of  all,  I  most  humbly  submit,  Sir,  to  your  better  judgment : 
yet  I  must  say  that,  though  I  have  read  much  of  the  historical  and 
mystical  proofs  of  the  truth  of  Scripture,  I  have  never  yet  met  with 
any  assertions  so  wonderfully  affecting  the  mind  of  man." 

"To  the  Professor  of  Divinity  at  Glasgow"  (R.  Traill),  he 
writes, — 

"  As  I  have  had  often  the  honor  of  conversing  with  him,  I  can 
with  great  truth  assert  that  he  is  truly  amiable  in  his  morals,  most 
learned  and  humble  in  his  discourse,  and  superlatively  affable,  hu- 
mane, and  courteous  in  his  behavior ;  and  this  joined  with  a  solidity 
of  understanding  and  penetration  far  above  the  level  of  an  ordinary 
genius.  Thus  much  I  know  of  him  and  therefore  sacredly  affirm, 
though  not  without  an  humble  deference  to  your  opinion  of  his 
writings." 

And  "to  the  Professor  of  Divinity  at  Aberdeen"  (Alexan- 
der Gerard),  he  says,  after  mentioning  the  sending  of  the 
books, — 

"  I  wish,  good  Sir,  you  may  think  them  worthy  of  your  perusal,  as 
they  are  the  productions  of  a  man  whose  good  qualities,  resulting 
from  his  natural,  acquired,  and  blessed  abilities,  I  can  with  much 
truth,  from  rny  frequent  converse  with  him,  assert  are  a  high  orna- 
ment to  human  nature." 

Dr.  Messiter  attended  Swedenborg  in  his  last  illness,  and 
to  him,  in  company  with  Mr.  Hartley,  Swedenborg,  a  few 
days  before  his  death,  affirmed  most  solemnly, — 

"  I  have  written  nothing  but  the  truth,  as  you  will  have  it 
more  and  more  confirmed  hereafter  all  the  days  of  your  life, 
provided  you  always  keep  close  to  the  Lord  and  faithfully 


328  CONCLUSION   OF  LIFE. 

serve  Him  alone,  in  shunning  evils  of  all  kinds  as  sins  against 
Him,  and  diligently  searching  His  Sacred  Word,  which  from 
beginning  to  end  bears  incontestable  testimony  to  the  truth 
of  the  doctrines  I  have  delivered  to  the  world. 

From  Dr.  William  Spence's  Essays  in  Divinity  aud  Phy- 
sic, published  in  1 792,  we  receive  this  curious  story  in  regard 
to  the  end  of  Dr.  Messiter's  life  :  — 

"  Having  had  the  favor  of  the  doctor's  company  to  dine  with  me 
and  a  few  friends,  a  few  weeks  before  his  decease,  some  of  the  com- 
pany having  heard  that  the  doctor  had  asked  the  question,  wished  to 
know  whether  Swedenborg  had  mentioned  when  this  New-Jerusalem 
doctrine  might  be  established,  as  at  that  time  the  regular  clergy  seemed 
almost  all  to  refuse  it ;  to  which  the  doctor  said,  the  Baron's  answer 
to  him  was,  that  times  and  seasons  were  in  God's  hands,  therefore  he 
could  not  positively  say  when ;  yet  thus  much  he  was  allowed  to  tell 
him,  that  he  [Dr.  M.]  would  probably  live  thirteen  years,  just  to  see 
it  in  its  bud.  '  Now,'  says  the  doctor,  '  it  fs  just  thirteen  years  that 
I  have  lived,  as  he  foretold,  to  see  it  in  its  bud,  through  your  little 
society's  encouraging  the  printing  of  his  works.'  The  doctor  also 
confirmed  what  Mr.  Shearsmith  and  his  wife,  in  whose  house  he  died, 
have  declared  upon  oath,  that  Swedenborg  knew  and  foretold  the 
Sunday  evening  he  was  to  leave  them,  and  that  to  the  last  he  asserted 
that  the  '  doctrine  will  be  received  in  God's  good  time,  because  the 
Lord  has  promised  it  in  His  Word.'  .  .  . 

"I  had  promised,"  says  Dr.  Spence,  "to  return  the  doctor's  visit 
with  my  spouse  the  first  good  weather ;  but  a  few  weeks  after,  hear- 
ing that  Dr.  Messiter  had  died  suddenly,  I  told  my  wife  that  she  was 
now  too  late  in  returning  the  doctor's  visit,  as  his  thirteen  years 
were  now  quite  out ;  yet  luckily  the  doctor  did  not  seem  to  suspect  it 
in  the  limited  sense." 

Let  it  here  be  said  of  Dr.  Spence  that,  though  never  hav- 
ing personally  met  Swedenborg,  he  was  one  of  the  friends  of 
the  New  Church  who  held  a  first  public  meeting,  in  1 783, 
and  one  of  the  five  who  in  1 785  undertook  the  publication 
of  The  Apocalypse  Explained.  He  is  described  by  Nor- 
denskold  as  "a  physician  and  apothecary,  an  extremely 
honest  and  benevolent  gentleman,  although  his  means  were 
limited." 

Another  friend  at  this  time  was  General  Tuxen,  holding 


GENERAL   TUXEN. 


329 


an  important  office  under  the  Danish  Government  at  Elsi- 
nore,  to  whom  we  are  indebted  for  pleasing  glimpses  of  Swe- 
denborg  in  common  life,  as  also  for  trustworthy  accounts  of 
some  unusual  events.  Tuxen  was  induced  to  seek  an  inter- 
view with  Swedenborg  on  account  of  the  remarkable  stories 
he  had  heard  of  his  intercourse  with  the  other  world.  At 
his  request,  when  next  the  object  of  his  curiosity  stopped  at 
Elsinore,  on  his  passage  through  the  Sound,  he  was  notified 
by  the  Swedish  consul  and  invited  to  meet  him  at  dinner  at 
the  consul's  house.  Says  Tuxen, — 

"  I  made  all  possible  haste,  and  on  entering  the  house  I  ad- 
dressed the  Assessor  as  being  an  intimate  friend  of  the  consul's, 
who  came  on  purpose  to  have  the  honor  of  the  acquaintance  of  so 
celebrated  and  learned  a  man  as  himself  ;  and  I  requested  his  per- 
mission to  ask  him  a  few  questions.  To  this  he  civilly  and  mildly 
answered,  '  Ask  what  you  please ;  I  will  answer  all  in  truth.'  My 
first  question  was,  whether  the  relation  reported  as  having  passed  be- 
tween himself  and  the  Queen  in  Stockholm  was  true.  He  answered, 
'  Tell  me  in  what  manner  you  have  heard  it  related,  and  I  will  tell 
you  what  part  of  it  is  true  or  otherwise.'  I  replied  that,  as  I  saw  he 
was  on  the  point  of  going  on  board  the  vessel,  I  supposed  there  was 
no  time  to  lose,  and  therefore  desired  he  would  have  the  kindness  to 
relate  the  affair  to  me.  He  consented,  and  told  it  me  in  the  same 
manner  as  I  had  been  informed  of  it  before  by  means  of  letters  from 
people  of  credit ;  adding,  however  the  following  circumstances."  .  .  . 

As  this  story  told  by  Tuxen  is  rather  long,  we  omit  it  now, 
and  will  presently  give  its  substance  as  told  more  concisely  by 
Baron  Hopken.  General  Tuxen  continues  :  — 

"  In  the  course  of  further  conversation  on  the  principles  of  religion 
advocated  and  explained  by  him,  I  took  an  opportunity  of  asking  him 
how  a  man  who  was  confident  of  being  serious  in  his  duty  towards 
God  and  his  neighbor,  could  be  certain  whether  he  was  in  the  right 
road  to  salvation  or  not.  I  was  answered  that  this  was  very  easy, 
and  that  such  a  man  need  only  examine  himself  and  his  own  thoughts 
according  to  the  Ten  Commandments ;  as,  for  instance,  whether  he 
loves  and  fears  God  ;  whether  he  is  happy  in  seeing  the  welfare  of 
others  and  does  not  envy  them  ;  whether  on  having  received  a  great 
injury  from  others,  which  may  have  excited  him  to  anger  and  revenge, 
he  afterwards  changes  his  sentiments  because  God  has  said  that 
vengeance  belongs  to  Him ;  and  so  on.  Then  he  may  rest  assured 


33O  CONCLUSION   OF   LIFE. 

that  he  is  on  the  road  to  heaven  ;  but  when  he  discovers  himself  to 
be  actuated  by  contrary  sentiments,  on  the  road  to  hell.  This  led  me 
to  think  of  myself  as  well  as  of  others. 

"  I  also  asked  him  whether  he  had  seen  the  lately  deceased  King 
Frederic  V.,  adding  that,  although  some  human  frailty  or  other  might 
be  attributed  to  him,  yet  I  had  certain  hopes  that  he  was  happy.  His 
answer  was, '  Yes,  I  have  seen  him,  and  I  know  that  he  is  very  happy ; 
and  not  only  he,  but  likewise  all  the  kings  of  the  house  of  Oldenburg, 
who  are  all  associated  together.  This  is  not  the  happy  case  with  our 
Swedish  kings,  some  of  whom  are  not  so  well  off.'  This  he  said  in 
the  presence  of  the  consul  and  the  Swedish  captain  with  whom  he 
sailed. 

"  He  added  further :  '  In  the  world  of  spirits  I  have  not  seen  any 
one  so  splendidly  served  and  waited  on  as  the  deceased  Empress 
Elizabeth  of  Russia.'  As  I  expressed  much  astonishment  at  this,  he 
continued,  '  I  could  also  tell  you  the  reason,  which  few  could  surmise, 
namely,  that  with  all  her  faults  she  had  a  good  heart,  and  with  her 
neglect  or  indifference  a  certain  consideration  which  induced  her  pur- 
posely to  postpone  signing  many  edicts  and  papers  that  were  from 
time  to  time  presented  to  her;  for  which  reason  they  multiplied  to 
such  a  degree  that  at  last  she  could  not  examine  or  peruse  them,  but 
was  obliged  to  believe  the  representations  of  the  ministers  and  sign 
as  many  as  possible  ;  after  which  she  would  retire  into  her  closet,  fall 
on  her  knees,  and  beg  forgiveness  of  God  if  she  had  against  her  will 
signed  anything  that  was  wrong.'  When  this  conversation  was  ended, 
Swedenborg  in  a  friendly  and  civil  manner  took  leave  and  went  on 
board. 

"  Some  time  afterwards  I  learned  that  Swedenborg,  who  was  on 
his  last  journey  to  Amsterdam  and  London  [1770],  had  been  detained 
for  four  days  by  a  contrary  wind  on  board  a  Swedish  ship,  anchored  a 
few  miles  from  Elsinore.  I  therefore  took  a  boat  and  went  off  to  see 
him ;  on  my  inquiring  whether  Assessor  Swedenborg  was  on  board, 
the  captain  answered  in  the  affirmative,  bade  me  welcome,  and  opened 
the  cabin-door,  which  as  soon  as  I  entered  he  shut  after  me.  I  found 
the  Assessor  seated  in  undress,  his  elbows  on  the  table,  his  hands  sup- 
porting his  face,  which  was  turned  towards  the  door,  his  eyes  open 
and  much  elevated.  I  was  so  imprudent  as  immediately  to  address 
him,  expressing  my  happiness  at  seeing  and  speaking  with  hirrt.  At 
this  he  recovered  himself,  for  he  had  really  been  in  a  trance,  or 
ecstasy,  as  his  posture  evinced,  and  rising  with  some  confusion  ad- 
vanced a  few  steps  from  the  table  in  singular  and  visible  uncertainty 
expressed  by  his  countenance  and  hands ;  from  which,  however,  he 
soon  recovered,  bidding  me  welcome  and  asking  me  whence  I  came. 
I  answered  that  as  I  had  heard  he  was  on  board  a  Swedish  ship  lying 


GENERAL  TUXEN.  331 

below  the  Roll,  I  had  come  to  invite  him  on  the  part  of  my  wife  and 
myself  to  favor  us  with  his  company  at  our  house.  To  this  he  imme- 
diately consented,  pulling  off  his  gown  and  slippers,  putting  on  clean 
linen,  and  dressing  himself  as  briskly  and  alertly  as  a  young  man  of 
one  and  twenty.  He  told  the  captain  where  he  was  to  be  found  if 
the  wind  became  favorable,  and  accompanied  me  to  Elsinore. 

"  Here  my  wife,  who  was  then  indisposed,  was  waiting  to  •welcome 
him  and  to  request  him  to  excuse  us  if  our  house  should  in  any  re- 
spect fall  short  of  our  wishes  to  entertain  him,  adding  that  she  had  for 
these  thirty  years  past  been  afflicted  with  a  violent  hysterical  disease, 
which  occasioned  her  much  pain  and  uneasiness.  He  very  politely 
kissed  her  hand  and  answered,  '  Oh  dear !  of  this  we  will  not  speak  ; 
only  acquiesce  in  the  will  of  God ;  it  will  pass  away  and  you  will  again 
attain  the  same  health  and  beauty  as  when  you  were  fifteen  years  of 
age.'  I  do  not  recollect  what  she  or  I  answered  to  this ;  but  I  re- 
marked that  in  answer  to  us  he  replied,  '  Yes,  in  a  few  weeks ; '  from 
which  I  concluded  that  diseases  which  have  their  foundation  in  the 
mind,  and  are  maintained  by  the  infirmities  and  pains  of  the  body, 
do  not  leave  man  immediately  on  the  separation  of  the  body.  .  .  . 

"  I  do  not  remember  on  what  occasion  he  told  me  that  the  King 
had  issued  a  circular  letter  to  all  the  Consistories  in  Sweden,  request- 
ing them  to  send  a  statement  of  their  grounds  of  complaint  against 
Swedenborg's  writings  and  explanations  in  religion  ;  and  that  the 
King,  the  last  time  he  spoke  with  him  on  the  subject,  familiarly  laid 
his  hand  on  his  shoulder  and  said,  '  They  will  not  make  any  reply  to 
me,  although  I  have  demanded  their  explicit  answers.' " 

The  evening  was  passed  with  the  General,  his  wife,  who 
was  an  excellent  singer,  her  daughter,  who  played  on  the 
harpsichord,  and  several  young  ladies.  Swedenborg  was  de- 
lighted with  their  music  and  made  himself  agreeable  to  all, 
declaring,  in  reply  to  his  host's  regret  at  having  no  better 
company  for  him,  that  he  had  always  been  partial  to  ladies' 
society.  General  Tuxen  concludes  :  — 

"  For  my  part,  I  thank  our  Lord,  the  God  of  Heaven,  that  I  have 
been  acquainted  with  this  great  man  and  his  writings.  I  esteem  this 
as  the  greatest  blessing  I  have  ever  experienced  in  my  life,  and  I  hope 
I  shall  profit  by  them  in  working  out  my  salvation.  My  valued  guest 
afterwards  took  his  coffee  with  a  few  biscuit,  and  I  accompanied  him 
on  board  the  vessel.  Here  he  took  leave  of  me  for  the  last  time  in  a 
very  affectionate  manner,  and  I  hope  I  shall  in  the  other  life  testify  to 
him  my  grateful  heart." 


332  CONCLUSION   OF  LIFE. 

Swedenborg  had  mentioned  to  Tuxen  the  name  of  Count 
Anders  Johan  Von  Hopken,  as  a  friend  in  Sweden  who  had 
some  interest  in  his  writings.  Count  Hopken  was  a  man  of 
great  literary  distinction,  a  Senator,  and  for  a  time  held  office 
equivalent  to  being  Prime  Minister  of  Sweden.  His  acquain- 
tance with  Swedenborg  is  thus  set  forth  by  himself  in  a  letter 
to  Tuxen :  — 

"  I  have  not  only  known  him  these  two  and  forty  years,  but  also, 
some  time  since,  daily  frequented  his  company.  A  man  who  like  me 
has  lived  long  in  the  world  and  even  in  an  extensive  career  of  life, 
must  have  had  numerous  opportunities  of  knowing  men  as  to  their 
virtues  or  vices,  their  weakness  or  strength ;  and  in  consequence 
thereof  I  do  not  recollect  to  have  known  any  man  of  more  uniformly 
virtuous  character  than  Swedenborg, —  always  contented,  never  fretful 
or  morose,  although  throughout  his  life  his  soul  was  occupied  with 
sublime  thoughts  and  speculations.  He  was  a  true  philosopher  and 
lived  like  one ;  he  labored  diligently,  and  lived  frugally  without  sor- 
didness  ;  he  travelled  continually,  and  his  travels  cost  him  no  more 
than  if  he  had  lived  at  home.  He  was  gifted  with  a  most  happy 
genius,  and  a  fitness  for  every  science,  which  made  him  shine  in  all 
those  which  he  embraced.  He  was  without  contradiction  the  most 
learned  man  in  my  country.  In  his  youth  he  was  a  great  poet :  I  have 
in  my  possession  some  remnants  of  his  Latin  poetry  which  Ovid 
would  not  have  been  ashamed  to  own.1  In  his  middle  age  his  Latin 
was  in  an  easy,  elegant,  and  ornamental  style ;  in  his  latter  years  it 
was  equally  clear,  but  less  elegant  after  he  had  turned  his  thoughts  to 
spiritual  subjects.  He  was  well  acquainted  with  Hebrew  and  Greek, 
an  able  and  profound  mathematician,  a  happy  mechanician,  of  which  he 
gave  proof  in  Norway,  where,  by  an  easy  and  simple  method,  he  trans- 
ported the  largest  galleys  over  high  mountains  and  rocks  to  a  gulf  where 
the  Danish  fleet  was  stationed.  .  .  .  He  possessed  a  sound  judgment 
upon  all  occasions ;  he  saw  everything  clearly  and  expressed  himself 
well  on  every  subject.  The  most  solid  memorials  and  the  best  penned 
at  the  Diet  of  1761,  on  matters  of  finance,  were  presented  by  him. 
...  I  once  represented  in  rather  a  serious  manner  to  this  venerable 
man,  that  I  thought  he  would  do  better  not  to  mix  with  his  beautiful 
writings  so  many  '  memorable  relations,'  or  things  heard  and  seen  in 
the  spiritual  world  concerning  the  states  of  men  after  death,  of  which 
ignorance  makes  a  jest  and  derision.  But  he  answered  me  that  this 
did  not  depend  on  him ;  that  he  was  too  old  to  sport  with  spiritual 

1  Count  Hopken  himself  is  called  in  the  Swedish  Biographical  Dictionary 
"  the  Swedish  Tacitus." 


COUNT   HOPKEN.  333 

things,  and  too  much  concerned  for  his  eternal  happiness  to  yield 
to  such  foolish  notions ;  assuring  me  on  his  hopes  of  salvation  that 
imagination  produced  in  him  none  of  his  revelations,  which  were 
true  and  from  what  he  had  heard  and  seen." 

In  another  letter  Count  Hopken  recurs  to  the  same  point : 
speaking  of  a  certain  clergyman,  he  says, — 

"  He  was  by  no  means  a  Swedenborgian,  for  he  did  not  understand 
his  '  memorable  relations ; '  and  I  could  wish  the  happy  deceased  had 
left  them  out,  as  they  may  prevent  infidelity  from  approaching  his 
doctrines.  I  represented  to  him  these  inconveniences  ;  but  he  said 
that  he  was  commanded  to  declare  what  he  had  seen  in  the  other 
world ;  and  he  related  it  as  a  proof  that  he  did  not  reveal  his  own 
thoughts,  but  that  they  came  from  above.  As  for  the  rest,  I  find  in 
his  system  a  simplicity  and  gradation,  and  such  a  spirit  as  the  work 
of  God  in  nature  everywhere  proves  and  exhibits ;  for  whatever  man 
creates  is  complicated,  labored,  and  subject  to  vicissitude." 

In  a  letter  to  another  friend,  still  to  the  same  point,  the 
Count  says, — 

"There  are  two  circumstances  in  the  doctrine  and  writings  of 
Swedenborg.  The  first  is  his  'memorable  relations.'  Of  these  I  can- 
not judge,  not  having  had  any  spiritual  intercourse  myself,  by  which 
to  judge  of  his  assertions  either  approvingly  or  disapprovingly ;  but 
they  cannot  appear  more  extraordinary  than  the  Apocalypse  of  John, 
and  other  similar  relations  in  the  Bible.  The  second  is  his  tenets  of 
doctrine.  Of  these  I  can  judge  :  they  are  excellent,  irrefutable,  and 
the  best  that  ever  were  taught,  promoting  the  happiest  social  life.  I 
know  that  Swedenborg  wrote  his  memorabilia  bonafide.  .  .  . 

"  I  have  sometimes  told  the  King  that  if  ever  a  new  colony  were 
to  be  formed,  no  religion  could  be  better,  as  the  prevailing  and  estab- 
lished one,  than  that  developed  by  Swedenborg  from  the  Sacred 
Scriptures,  and  this  for  the  two  following  reasons:  First,  this  re- 
ligion, in  preference  to  and  in  a  higher  degree  than  any  other,  must 
produce  the  most  honest  and  industrious  subjects ;  for  it  properly 
places  the  worship  of  God  in  uses.  Second,  it  causes  least  fear  of 
death,  as  this  religion  regards  death  merely  as  a  transition  from  one 
state  to  another,  from  a  worse  to  a  better  situation ;  nay,  upon  his 
principles  I  look  upon  death  as  being  of  hardly  any  greater  moment 
than  drinking  a  glass  of  water.  I  have  been  convinced  of  the  truth 
of  Swedenborg's  doctrine  from  these  arguments  in  particular,  namely, 
that  ONE  is  the  author  of  everything,  and  that  a  separate  person  is 
not  the  Creator,  and  another  the  Author  of  religion ;  that  there  are 


334 


CONCLUSION   OF  LIFE. 


degrees  in  everything  and  these  subsisting  to  eternity ;  the  history  of 
creation  is  unaccountable  unless  explained  in  the  spiritual  sense.  We 
may  say  of  the  religion  which  Swedenborg  has  developed  in  his  writ- 
ings from  the  Word  of  God,  with  Gamaliel :  '  If  it  be  of  God,  it  can- 
not be  overthrown ;  but  if  it  be  of  man,  it  will  come  to  nought.' " 

That  Swedenborg  on  his  part  held  Hopken  in  high  esteem 
is  shown  by  the  memorials  to  the  Diet  in  his  favor,  to  which 
we  have  already  referred  (see  p.  279).  We  will  take  our 
leave  of  the  Count  in  copying  his  statement  of  the  "Truth- 
ful account  made  by  the  late  Queen  Dowager  "  : — 

"  Swedenborg  was  one  day  at  a  court  reception.  Her  Majesty  [the 
Queen  Dowager  Louisa  Ulrica]  asked  him  about  different  things  in 
the  other  life,  and  lastly  whether  he  had  seen  or  talked  with  her 
brother,  the  Prince  Royal  of  Prussia.  He  answered,  '  No.'  Her 
Majesty  then  requested  him  to  ask  after  him,  and  to  give  him  her 
greeting,  which  Swedenborg  promised  to  do.  I  doubt  whether  the 
Queen  meant  anything  serious  by  it.  At  the  next  reception  Sweden- 
borg again  appeared  at  court ;  and  while  the  Queen  was  in  the  so- 
called  white  room,  surrounded  by  her  ladies  of  honor,  he  came  boldly 
in  and  approached  her  Majesty,  who  no  longer  remembered  the  com- 
mission she  had  given 'him  a  week  before.  Swedenborg  not  only 
greeted  her  from  her  brother,  but  also  gave  her  his  apologies  for  not 
having  answered  her  last  letter ;  he  also  wished  to  do  so  now  through 
Swedenborg,  which  he  accordingly  did.  The  Queen  was  greatly 
overcome,  and  said,  '  No  one  except  God  knows  this  secret.' 

"  The  reason  why  the  Queen  never  adverted  to  this  before,  was  that 
she  did  not  wish  any  one  in  Sweden  to  believe  that  during  a  war  with 
Prussia  she  had  carried  on  a  correspondence  in  the  enemy's  country. 
The  same  caution  her  Majesty  exercised  during  her  last  visit  to  Berlin. 
When  she  was  asked  about  this  transaction,  which  had  been  printed 
in  a  German  paper,  she  did  not  answer." 

The  same  story  comes  to  us  through  many  different  chan- 
nels, to  substantially  the  same  effect.  The  account  given  by 
Mr.  Springer,  as  from  Swedenborg  himself,  contains  a  varia- 
tion quite  likely  to  be  true  :  — 

"  The  Queen  of  Sweden  had  written  letters  to  her  brother,  a  Prince  of 
Prussia ;  and  having  no  answers,  she  doubted  whether  he  had  received 
them  or  not.  The  Baron  [Swedenborg]  at  that  time  had  converse 
with  the  Queen,  and  her  brother  had  died  in  Prussia.  She  was  very 
desirous  to  know  if  he  had  received  the  letters.  She  consulted  the 


CHRISTOPHER  SPRINGER.  335 

Baron,  who  said  he  would  inform  her  in  a  few  days.  He  did  so,  and 
told  her  he  had  received  them  and  was  going  to  answer  them,  and 
that  in  an  escritoire  of  the  Prince  was  a  letter  unfinished  intended  for 
her  ;  but  he  was  taken  ill  and  died.  She  sent  to  the  King  of  Prussia, 
and  it  was  as  the  Baron  had  foretold, —  the  King  sent  the  unfinished 
letter." 

The  Prince  of  Prussia  referred  to  was  Augustus  William, 
brother  to  Frederic  II.  and  to  the  Queen  Louisa  Ulrica,  wife 
of  Adolphus  Frederic,  King  of  Sweden  from  1751  to  1771. 
It  is  amusingly  told,  on  the  authority  of  the  wife  of  Sweden- 
borg's  gardener,  that  "  for  days  following  the  occurrence  car- 
riages stopped  before  the  door  of  her  master,  from  which 
the  first  gentlemen  of  the  kingdom  alighted,  who  desired  to 
know  the  secret  of  which  the  Queen  was  so  much  frightened ; 
but  her  master,  faithful  to  his  promise,  refused  to  tell  it." 

Christopher  Springer,  whose  statement  we  have  just  quoted, 
was  a  Swede,  and  long  a  friend  of  Swedenborg,  both  in  their 
own  country  and  in  London,  where  for  political  reasons  he 
resided  many  years.  He  had  been  prominent  in  public 
affairs  at  home,  and  became  the  confidential  agent  of  the 
English  Government  in  all  that  concerned  Swedish  matters, 
being  employed  in  bringing  about  peace  between  Sweden 
and  Frederick  the  Great,  in  1762.  In  London  he  was  re- 
garded as  the  father  of  the  Swedes,  and  was  applied  to  for 
all  aid  and  information.  In  answer  to  inquiries  about  Swe- 
denborg, after  his  decease,  Mr.  Springer  says, — 

"  His  father,  Jesper  Swedberg,  was  Bishop  of  Skara,  a  man  of  great 
learning  ;  but  this  Emanuel  Swedenborg  received  richer  endowments 
from  God.  His  knowledge  as  well  as  his  sincerity  was  great.  He 
was  constant  in  friendship,  extremely  frugal  in  his  diet,  and  plain  in  his 
dress.  His  usual  food  was  coffee  with  milk,  and  bread  and  butter ; 
sometimes,  however,  he  partook  of  a  little  fish,  and  only  at  rare  in- 
tervals ate  meat ;  and  he  never  drank  above  two  glasses  of  wine.  .  .  . 

"  Two  or  three  weeks  before  his  decease  ...  I  asked  him  when  he 
believed  that  the  New  Jerusalem,  or  the  New  Church  of  God,  would 
manifest  itself,  and  whether  this  manifestation  would  take  place  in 
the  four  quarters  of  the  world.  His  answer  was  that  no  mortal  and 
not  even  the  celestial  angels  could  predict  the  time  ;  that  it  was  solely 
in  the  will  of  God.  '  Read,'  said  he,  'the  Book  of  Revelation,  xxi.  2, 


336  CONCLUSION   OF  LIFE. 

and  Zachariah  xiv.  19,  and  you  will  see  there  that  the  New  Jerusalem 
will  undoubtedly  manifest  itself  to  the  whole  earth.'  .  .  . 

"  Fifteen  years  ago  [in  1766]  Swedenborg  set  out  for  Sweden,  and 
asked  me  to  procure  a  good  captain  for  him,  which  I  did.  I  con- 
tracted with  one  whose  name  was  Dixon.  .  .  .  When  the  captain  of 
the  vessel  called  for  Swedenborg,  I  took  leave  of  him  and  wished 
him  a  happy  journey.  Having  then  asked  the  captain  if  he  had  a 
good  supply  of  provisions  on  board,  he  answered  me  that  he  had  as 
much  as  would  be  required.  Swedenborg  then  observed,  '  My  friend, 
we  have  not  need  of  a  great  quantity  ;  for  this  day  week  we  shall,  by 
the  aid  of  God,  enter  into  the  port  of  Stockholm  at  two  o'clock.'  On 
Captain  Dixon's  return,  he  related  to  me  that  this  happened  exactly 
as  Swedenborg  had  foretold. 

"Two  years  afterwards  Swedenborg  returned  to  London,  where  we 
continued  our  former  friendship.  He  told  me  that  he  had  sent  his 
works  to  the  bishops  of  Sweden,  but  without  result,  and  that  they 
had  received  him  with  the  same  indifference  that  he  had  experienced 
from  the  bishops  in  England.  What  a  remarkable  change  I  noticed 
among  the  bishops  of  London!  I  had  witnessed  myself  with  what 
coldness  he  was  received  by  them  before  his  departure  for  Sweden, 
and  I  saw  that  on  his  return  he  was  received  by  them  with  the  great- 
est civility.  I  asked  him  how  this  change  could  have  come,  when  he 
answered,  '  God  knows  the  time  when  His  Church  ought  to  com- 
mence.' .  .  . 

"  As  to  what  relates  to  myself,  I  cannot  give  you  a  reason  for  the 
great  friendship  Swedenborg  entertained  for  me,  who  am  not  a  learned 
man.  It  is  true,  we  were  good  friends  in  Sweden ;  but  that  this 
friendship  between  us  should  have  become  as  constant  as  it  has  been, 
I  never  expected. 

"  All  that  he  has  told  me  of  my  deceased  friends  and  enemies,  and 
of  the  secrets  I  had  with  them,  is  almost  past  belief.  He  even  ex- 
plained to  me  in  what  manner  peace  was  concluded  between  Sweden 
and  the  King  of  Prussia ;  and  he  praised  my  conduct  on  that  occasion. 
He  even  specified  the  three  high  personages  whose  services  I  made 
use  of  at  that  time ;  which  was,  nevertheless,  a  profound  secret  be- 
tween us.  On  asking  him  how  it  was  possible  for  him  to  obtain  such 
information,  and  who  had  discovered  it  to  him,  he  replied,  'Who  in- 
formed me  about  your  affair  with  Count  Claes  Ekeblad  ?  You  can- 
not deny  that  what  I  have  told  you  is  true.  Continue,'  he  added, 
*  to  merit  his  reproaches ; l  depart  not  from  the  good  way  either  for 
honors  or  money ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  continue  as  constant  therein 
as  you  have  hitherto,  and  you  will  prosper.' " 

1  For  refusing  a  great  bribe. 


ARVID    FERELIUS.  337 

Among  Swedenborg's  friends  in  his  latter  days,  if  not 
much  more  than  an  acquaintance,  we  may  mention  Arvid 
Ferelius,  pastor  of  the  Swedish  Church  in  London.  From 
his  position  he  had  serious  conversations  with  Swedenborg, 
administered  the  Communion  to  him,  and  officiated  at  his 
funeral.  There  is  reason  to  believe  that  he  was  favorably 
impressed  with  the  doctrines  his  communicant  commended 
to  him,  although  he  never  openly  professed  them.  To  a 
friend,  Professor  at  Griefswalde,  Ferelius  writes, — 

"Assessor  Emanuel  Swedenborg  died  in  the  month  of  March, 
1772,  and  was  buried  by  me  on  April  5th  in  the  burying  vault  of  the 
Swedish  Ulrica-Eleonora  church ;  which  was  the  last  clerical  duty  I 
performed  in  that  country.  Towards  the  close  of  the  year  [1771]  he 
was  touched  by  paralysis  on  one  side,  which  rendered  his  speech 
indistinct,  especially  when  the  atmosphere  was  oppressive. 

"  I  visited  him  several  times,  and  asked  him  each  time  whether  he 
had  an  idea  that  he  was  to  die  at  this  time,  upon  which  he  answered, 
'  Yes.' 

"  Upon  this  I  observed  to  him,  that  as  quite  a  number  of  people 
thought  that  his  sole  purpose  in  promulgating  his  new  theological  sys- 
tem had  been  to  make  himself  a  name,  or  to  acquire  celebrity,  which 
object  indeed  he  had  thereby  attained, —  if  such  had  been  the  case, 
he  ought  now  to  do  the  world  the  justice  to  retract  it  either  in  whole 
or  in  part,  especially  as  he  could  not  expect  to  derive  any  additional 
advantage  from  this  world,  which  he  would  soon  leave.  He  thereupon 
half  rose  in  his  bed,  and  laying  his  sound  hand  upon  his  breast  said, 
with  some  manifestation  of  zeal,  'As  true  as  you  see  me  before  your  eyes, 
so  true  is  everything  that  I  have  written  ;  and  I  could  have  said  more, 
had  it  been  permitted.  When  you  enter  eternity,  you  will  see  everything, 
and  then  yott  and  I  shall  have  mtich  to  talk  about? 

"  When  I  asked  him  whether  he  was  willing  to  receive  the  Lord's 
Supper,  he  replied,  '  With  thankfulness ; '  and  then  he  added  that  my 
question  was  very  opportune ;  and  although  being  a  member  of  the 
other  world  he  did  not  need  this  sacrament,  he  would  still  take  it,  in 
order  to  show  the  close  relation  which  exists  between  the  Church 
above  and  the  Church  here  below ;  and  he  then  asked  whether  I  had 
read  his  views  about  the  sacrament  of  the  altar,  the  Communion.  I 
then  asked  whether  he  acknowledged  himself  to  be  a  sinner.  He 
replied,  '  Certainly,  as  long  as  I  carry  about  this  sinful  body.' *  With 

1  Or,  according  to  another  account,  "  I  am  most  undoubtedly  a  sinner ;  for 
what  other  reason  should  I  have  to  carry  about  with  me  this  sinful  body  ?  " 

22 


338  CONCLUSION   OF  LIFE. 

much  devotion,  folding  his  hands  and  uncovering  his  head,  he  read 
the  confession  of  sins  and  received  the  holy  sacrament.  Afterwards, 
from  gratitude,  he  presented  me  with  a  copy  of  his  larger  work,  the 
Arcana  Ccelestia,  of  which  only  nine  copies  remained  unsold,  which 
were  to  be  sent  to  Holland. 

"  When  I  visited  him  another  time,  while  I  was  in  the  hall  and  going 
upstairs,  I  heard  him  speaking  with  the  greatest  energy,  as  though  he 
were  addressing  a  large  company ;  but  as  I  came  into  the  ante-cham- 
ber where  his  female  attendant  was  sitting,  and  asked  her  who  was 
with  Assessor  Swedenborg,  she  replied,  '  No  one ; '  adding  that  he  had 
been  speaking  in  this  manner  for  three  days  and  nights.  Upon  enter- 
ing his  sleeping-room,  he  bade  me  welcome  with  great  calmness  and 
asked  me  to  take  a  seat ;  he  then  told  me  that  for  ten  days  and  nights 
he  had  been  tormented  by  evil  spirits  whom  the  Lord  had  sent  up  to 
him,  and  that  never  before  had  he  been  infested  by  such  wicked 
spirits  ;  but  that  now  he  was  again  in  the  company  of  good  spirits. 

"  While  he  was  still  in  health,  I  came  to  him  once  with  the  Danish 
pastor,  when  he  was  sitting  and  writing  at  a  round  table  in  the  middle 
of  the  room,  with  the  Hebrew  Bible  before  him,  which  constituted  his 
whole  library.  After  greeting  us,  he  pointed  to  a  place  opposite  and 
said,  'Just  now  the  Apostle  Peter  was  here  and  stood  there;  and  not 
very  long  ago  all  the  Apostles  were  with  me  ;  indeed,  they  often  visit 
me.'  In  this  manner  he  always  expressed  himself  without  reserve ; 
but  he  never  sought  to  make  proselytes.  That  upon  which  he  was 
engaged  at  the  time,  he  said,  was  to  be  a  demonstration  from  the 
writings  of  the  Apostles,1  that  the  Lord  was  the  only  and  true  God, 
and  that  there  is  no  other  besides  Him. 

"  Although  Swedenborg  was  several  times  in  the  Swedish  church 
and  afterwards  dined  with  me,  or  with  some  other  Swede,  he  said  that 
he  had  no  peace  in  the  church  on  account  of  the  spirits,  who  contra- 
dicted what  the  minister  said,  especially  when  he  treated  of  three 
persons  in  the  Godhead,  which  is  the  same  as  three  Gods. 

This  preaching  was  probably  by  Mathesius,  the  colleague  of 
Ferelius,  who  was  violently  opposed  to  Swedenborg's  views, 
and  of  whom  we  shall  presently  hear  again.  Ferelius  con- 
tinues,— 

"  Some  one  might  think  that  Assessor  Swedenborg  was  eccentric 
and  whimsical ;  but  the  very  reverse  was  the  case.  He  was  very  easy 
and  pleasant  in  company,  talked  on  every  subject  that  came  up, 
accommodating  himself  to  the  ideas  of  the  company;  and  he  never 
spoke  on  his  own  views,  unless  he  was  asked  about  them.  But  if  he 

1  This  would  account  for  the  Apostles'  presence. 


ERIC   BERGSTROM.  339 

noticed  that  any  one  asked  him  impertinent  questions,  intending  to 
make  sport  of  him,  he  immediately  gave  such  an  answer  that  the 
questioner  was  obliged  to  keep  silence,  without  being  the  wiser  for  it." 

It  is  pleasant  to  learn  that  the  good  pastor  Ferelius  re- 
ceived at  Swedenborg's  burial  his  large  Hebrew  Bible,  his 
travelling  companion,  full  of  underscored  passages. 

While  we  are  upon  these  little  incidents  of  Swedenborg's 
life  in  London,  let  us  quote  a  few  other  persons  to  whom 
he  was  known.  Mr.  Eric  Bergstrom,  host  of  King's  Arms 
Tavern,  said  to  Peter  Provo, — 

"  I  was  personally  acquainted  with  Assessor  Swedenborg :  he  fre- 
quently called  on  me,  and  once  lived  ten  weeks  together  in  this  house, 
during  which  time  I  observed  nothing  in  him  but  what  was  very  rea- 
sonable and  bespoke  the  gentleman.  He  at  that  time  breakfasted  on 
coffee,  ate  moderately  at  dinner,  and  drank  one  or  two  glasses  of  wine 
after  it,  but  never  more.  In  the  afternoon  he  drank  tea,  but  never  ate 
any  supper.  He  usually  walked  out  after  breakfast,  generally  dressed 
neatly  in  velvet,  and  made  a  good  appearance.  He  was  mostly  re- 
served, but  complaisant  to  others. 

"  He  has  told  me  that  very  few  were  given  to  see  the  things  that  he 
did,  and  that  he  often  saw  many  extraordinary  things.  Mr.  Springer 
once  asked  him,  when  at  dinner  here,  about  the  state  of  a  person 
[Ekeblad  ?]  who  was  the  occasion  of  Mr.  Springer's  being  obliged  to 
leave  Sweden,  and  who  was  deceased ;  to  which  he  answered  that  it 
was  very  bad,  and  that  he  hoped  his  would  be  better.  A  secretary  of 
Baron  Nolcken,  who  was  present,  put  an  impertinent  question  to  him 
of  a  similar  kind,  which  he  refused  to  answer,  observing  that  he  never 
answered  such  questions  as  originated  in  ill-will  or  malice.  .  .  . 

"  Mr.  Mathesius  was  an  opponent  of  Swedenborg  and  said  that  he 
was  a  lunatic,  etc. ;  but  it  is  remarkable  that  he  became  a  lunatic  him- 
self, which  happened  publicly  one  day  when  he  was  in  the  Swedish 
church  and  about  to  preach.  I  was  there  and  saw  it.  He  has  been 
so  ever  since,  and  was  sent  back  to  Sweden,  where  he  now  is.  This 
was  about  four  years  ago.1 

"  In  general  Swedenborg  kept  retired  and  sought  to  avoid  company 

1  It  was  Mathesius  who  told  this  absurd  story  to  Wesley,  being  enraged  by 
Swedenborg's  objections  to  the  Lutheran  creed.  The  story  was  founded  on 
information  said  to  have  been  given  by  Brockmer,  a  Moravian,  with  whom 
Swedenborg  lodged  at  one  time  in  London.  These  statements  Brockmer  after- 
wards denied  for  the  most  part,  though  Swedenborg  believed  that  he  had 
doubtless  made  them  out  of  revenge  for  his  exposure  of  Moravianism. 


34O  CONCLUSION  OF   LIFE. 

and  making  known  where  he  was.  Some  of  his  friends  here  spoke 
against  him,  and  some  were  for  him.  For  my  own  part  I  think  he 
was  a  reasonable,  sensible,  and  good  man :  he  was  very  kind  to  all 
and  generous  to  me.  As  for  his  peculiar  sentiments,  I  do  not  meddle 
with  them." 

Mr.  Hart,  son  of  Mr.  John  Hart,  Swedenborg's  London 
printer,  according  to  Mr.  Provo  — 

"  Thought  Swedenborg  a  remarkable  man,  for  whilst  he  was  abroad 
old  Mr.  Hart,  his  father,  died  in  London.  On  Swedenborg's  return  he 
went  to  spend  an  evening  at  Mr.  Hart's  house,  in  Poppin's  Court. 
After  being  let  in  at  the  street  door,  he  was  told  that  his  old  friend 
Mr.  Hart  was  dead ;  to  which  he  replied,  '  I  know  that  very  well,  for 
I  saw  him  in  the  spiritual  world  while  I  was  in  Holland,  at  [such  a  time, 
near  the  time  he  died,  or  soon  after]  ;  also  whilst  coming  over  in  the 
packet  to  England:  he  is  not  now  in  heaven,  but  is  coming  round  and 
in  a  good  way  to  do  well.'  This  much  surprised  the  widow  and  son, 
for  they  knew  well  he  was  just  come  over,  and  they  said  that  he  was 
of  such  a  nature  that  he  could  impose  on  no  one,  that  he  always  spoke 
the  truth  concerning  every  little  matter,  and  would  not  have  made  any 
evasion  though  his  life  had  been  at  stake.  Mr.  Hart,  the  father, 
printed  all  the  Arcana  Ccelestia  in  Latin.  Swedenborg  was  fond  of  his 
company  and  often  went  to  spend  an  evening  there  :  he  used  to  take 
particular  notice  of  Mr.  Hart's  little  girl. 

"  Mr.  Burkhardt,  a  Swede  and  formerly  clerk  to  the  Swedish  Chapel 
in  London,  told  Mr.  Provo  in  1783  that  he  knew  Swedenborg  and  was 
present  once  when  he  dined  in  London  with  some  of  the  Swedish 
clergy.  He  said  that  some  argument  passed  between  Swedenborg  and 
one  of  them  concerning  the  Lord  and  the  nature  of  man's  duty  to  Him, 
and  that  Swedenborg  overthrew  the  tenets  of  his  opponent,  who 
appeared  but  a  child  to  him  in  knowledge.  Mr.  Burkhardt  added  that 
Swedenborg  was  a  holy,  good  man,  much  given  to  abstraction  of  mind ; 
that  even  when  walking  out  he  sometimes  seemed  as  if  in  private 
prayer,  and  latterly  took  but  little  notice  of  things  and  people  in  the 
streets." 

John  Christian  Cuno,  soldier,  poet,  and  merchant,  of 
Amsterdam,  left  a  manuscript  autobiography,  in  which  he 
has  much  to  say  of  Swedenborg :  — 

"  I  must  remain  faithful  to  a  promise  made  last  year,  and  begin  by 
giving  an  account  of  the  most  singular  saint  who  has  ever  lived,  Mr. 
Emanuel  Swedenborg.  As  nothing  concerns  me  more  in  this  world 
than  the  worship  of  God,  and  as  I  found  interspersed  in  the  last  work 


JOHN  CHRISTIAN   CUNO.  341 

of  that  man  such  strange  and  singular  things,  I  was  naturally  im- 
pelled by  an  irresistible  curiosity  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  the 
author.  .  .  . 

"The  Christian  worship  of  God  is  subject  to  this  sad  calamity  in 
this  world,  that  attacks  are  made  upon  it  either  by  arrogant  fools  who 
call  themselves  strong-minded,  or  by  visionaries ;  the  latter  rendering 
it  ridiculous  sometimes  without  wishing  to  do  so,  but  the  former 
endeavoring  to  do  so  with  all  their  power.  The  learned  Mr.  Sweden- 
borg  cannot  be  classed  among  freethinkers  and  enemies  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion ;  for  he  writes  with  the  greatest  reverence  for  God  and 
His  Word.  He  has  impressed  upon  me  the  most  profound  reverence 
for  the  adorable  Saviour  of  the  world,  and  his  entire  system  of  doctrine 
is  based  upon  His  Divinity.  .  .  . 

"  I  scarcely  believe  that  he  has  any  enemies ;  at  all  events  he  could 
not  have  made  them  by  the  innocent,  even  sainted,  tenor  of  his  life ; 
and  should  he  have  them,  it  would  be  impossible  for  them,  as  well 
as  for  the  scoffers  who  examine  closely  all  modes  of  life  different 
from  their  own,  to  discover  anything  in  him  which  they  could  justly 
find  fault  with,  or  even  calumniate.  .  .  . 

"My  first  acquaintance  with  him  dates  from  November  4,  1768, 
when  I  happened  to  meet  him  in  the  French  book-shop  of  Mr.  Fran- 
9ois  Changuion.  The  old  gentleman  speaks  both  French  and  High- 
German,  yet  not  very  readily.  Besides,  he  is  afflicted  with  the  natural 
infirmity  of  stammering ;  yet  at  one  time  more  than  at  another.  Our 
first  meeting  was  pleasing  and  sympathetic.  He  permitted  me  to  call 
upon  him  at  his  own  house,  which  I  did  on  the  following  Sunday ;  and 
I  continued  to  do  so  almost  every  Sunday,  after  attending  church  in 
the  morning.  He  lodged  near  our  old  church  in  Kalbergasse  [Amster- 
dam], where  he  had  engaged  two  comfortable  rooms.  One  of  my  first 
questions  was  whether  he  had  no  male  attendant  to  wait  upon  him  in 
his  old  age,  and  to  accompany  him  on  his  journeys.  He  answered 
that  he  needed  no  one  to  look  after  him,  because  his  angel  was  ever 
with  him,  and  conversed  and  held  communication  with  him.  If  an- 
other man  had  uttered  these  words,  he  would  have  made  me  laugh ; 
but  I  never  thought  of  laughing  when  this  venerable  man,  eighty-one 
years  old,  told  me  this, —  he  looked  far  too  innocent ;  and  when  he 
gazed  on  me  with  his  smiling  blue  eyes,  which  he  always  did  in  con- 
versing with  me,  it  was  as  if  truth  itself  was  speaking  from  them.  I 
often  noticed  with  surprise  how  scoffers,  who  had  made  their  way  into 
large  companies  where  I  had  taken  him,  and  whose  purpose  it  had 
been  to  make  fun  of  the  old  gentleman,  forgot  all  their  laughter  and 
their  intended  scoffing  ;  and  how  they  stood  agape  and  listened  to  the 
most  singular  things  which  he,  like  an  open-hearted  child,  told  about 
the  spiritual  world,  without  reserve  and  with  full  confidence.  It  almost 


342 


CONCLUSION   OF   LIFE. 


seemed  as  if  his  eyes  possessed  the  faculty  of  imposing  silence  on 
every  one. 

"  He  lived  with  simple  burgher  folks,  who  kept  a  shop  in  which  they 
sold  chintz,  muslin,  handkerchiefs,  and  the  like,  and  who  had  quite 
a  number  of  little  children.  I  inquired  of  the  landlady  whether  the 
old  gentleman  did  not  require  very  much  attention.  She  answered, 
1  He  scarcely  requires  any ;  the  servant  has  nothing  else  to  do  for  him 
except  in  the  morning  to  lay  the  fire  for  him  in  the  fire-place.  Every 
evening  he  goes  to  bed  at  seven,  and  gets  up  in  the  morning  at  eight. 
We  do  not  trouble  ourselves  any  more  about  him.  During  the  day  he 
keeps  up  the  fire  himself,  and  on  going  to  bed  takes  great  care  lest  the 
fire  should  do  any  damage.  He  dresses  and  undresses  himself  alone, 
and  waits  upon  himself  in  everything ;  so  that  we  scarcely  know 
whether  there  is  any  one  in  the  house  or  not.  I  should  like  him 
to  be  with  us  during  the  rest  of  his  life.  My  children  will  miss  him 
most ;  for  he  never  goes  out  without  bringing  them  home  sweets  :  the 
little  rogues  also  dote  on  the  old  gentleman  so  much  that  they  prefer 
him  to  their  own  parents.'  .  .  . 

"  It  soon  became  known  in  town  that  I  associated  with  this  remark- 
able man,  and  everybody  troubled  me  to  give  them  an  opportunity  of 
making  his  acquaintance.  I  advised  the  people  to  do  as  I  had  done, 
and  to  call  upon  him,  because  he  willingly  conversed  with  every  hon- 
est man.  Mr.  Swedenborg  moves  in  the  world  with  great  tact,  and 
knows  how  to  address  the  high  as  well  as  the  low.  .  .  . 

"  Once,  at  the  urgent  request  of  my  friend,  Mr.  Nicolam  Konauw,  I 
agreed  to  bring  him  to  dinner.  The  old  gentleman  consented  and 
was  prepared  at  once  to  go.  Mr.  Konauw  sent  his  carriage  for  us. 
On  presenting  ourselves  to  Madame,  we  found  among  other  guests 
the  two  Misses  Hoog,  who  had  been  highly  educated  and  had  been 
introduced,  beyond  the  common  sphere  of  woman,  into  the  higher, 
especially  the  philosophical  sciences.  Mr.  Swedenborg's  deportment 
was  exquisitely  refined  and  gallant.  When  dinner  was  announced,  I 
offered  my  hand  to  the  hostess,  and  quickly  our  young  man  of  eighty- 
one  years  had  put  on  his  gloves  and  presented  his  hand  to  Mademoi- 
selle Hoog,  in  doing  which  he  looked  uncommonly  well.  Whenever 
he  was  invited  out,  he  dressed  properly  and  becomingly  in  black 
velvet ;  but  ordinarily  he  wore  a  brown  coat  and  black  trowsers.  .  .  . 

"  I  shall  never  forget,  as  long  as  I  live,  the  leave  which  he  took  of 
me  in  my  own  house.  It  seemed  to  me  as  if  this  truly  venerable  old 
man  was  much  more  eloquent  this  last  time,  and  spoke  differently 
from  what  I  ever  heard  him  speak  before.  He  admonished  me  to 
continue  in  goodness  and  to  acknowledge  the  Lord  for  my  God.  '  If  it 
please  God,  I  shall  once  more  come  to  you  in  Amsterdam  ;  for  I  love 
you.'  '  O  my  worthy  Mr.  Swedenborg,'  I  interrupted  him,  '  this  will 


JOHN   CHRISTIAN   CUNO.  343 

probably  not  take  place  in  this  world ;  for  I,  at  least,  do  not  attribute 
to  myself  a  long  life.'  '  This  you  cannot  know,'  he  continued,  '  we  are 
obliged  to  remain  as  long  in  the  world  as  the  Divine  Providence  and 
Wisdom  see  fit.  If  any  one  is  conjoined  with  the  Lord,  he  has  a 
foretaste  of  the  eternal  life  in  this  world ;  and  if  he  has  this,  he  no 
longer  cares  so  much  about  this  transitory  life.  Believe  me,  if  I  knew 
that  the  Lord  would  call  me  to  Himself  to-morrow,  I  would  summon 
the  musicians  to-day,  in  order  to  be  once  more  really  gay  in  this 
world.'  In  order  to  feel  what  I  felt  then,  you  would  have  had  to  hear 
the  old  man  say  this,  in  his  second  childhood.  This  time  also  he 
looked  so  innocent  and  so  joyful  out  of  his  eyes  as  I  had  never  seen 
him  look  before.  I  did  not  interrupt  him,  and  was  as  it  were  dumb 
with  astonishment.  He  then  saw  a  Bible  lying  on  my  desk,  and  while 
I  was  thus  gazing  quietly  before  me  and  he  could  easily  see  the  state 
of  my  mind,  he  took  the  book  and  opened  it  at  this  passage  :  i  John 
v.  20,  21.  'Read  these  words,'  he  said,  and  then  closed  the  book 
again,  'but  that  you  may  not  forget  them,  I  will  rather  put  them  down 
for  you ; '  and  in  saying  these  words  he  dipped  the  pen  in  order  to 
write  them  on  the  leaf  which  is  preserved  here ;  his  hand  however 
trembled,  as  may  be  seen  from  the  figure  i.  This  I  could  not  bear, 
and  so  I  asked  him  in  a  friendly  manner  to  mention  the  passage  to  me. 
I  then  put  down  the  passage  myself.  As  soon  as  I  had  done  so  he 
arose.  '  The  time  now  approaches/  he  said,  '  when  I  must  take  leave 
of  my  other  friends.'  He  then  embraced  and  kissed  me  most  heartily. 
"  As  soon  as  he  had  left,  I  read  the  passage  which  he  had  recom- 
mended to  me.  It- read  thus:  '  But  we  know  that  the  Son  of  God 
has  come,  and  hath  given  us  an  understanding  that  we  may  know 
Him  that  is  true,  and  we  are  in  Him  that  is  true,  even  in  His  Son, 
Jesus  Christ.  This  is  the  true  God,  and  eternal  life.  Little  children, 
keep  yourselves  from  idols.  Amen.' " 

In  a  sense,  Cuno's  account  is  the  more  valuable  for  his  not 
accepting  the  whole  of  Swedenborg's  theology.  Of  his  inter- 
course with  the  other  world  he  does  not  seem  to  have  any 
serious  doubt;  but  Cuno  was  too  much  attached  to  the 
Lutheran  Church  to  be  content  with  Swedenborg's  condemna- 
tion of  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith,  especially  when 
himself  accused  by  his  Church  of  affiliating  with  its  oppo- 
nent. In  a  few  months  he  wrote  and  circulated  a  long  letter 
to  Swedenborg,  over  the  signature  of  "Paulus  ab  Indagine," 
condemning  his  departure  from  the  Lutheran  faith,  and  ques- 
tioning whether  he  had  not  been  deceived  by  his  spirits. 


344 


CONCLUSION   OF   LIFE. 


The  letter  was  not  meant  to  be  unfriendly,  but  its  contents 
were  quite  sufficient  to  account  for  Swedenborg's  changed 
appearance,  when  they  met  again,  and  for  his  remark,  "  If 
you  are  not  willing  to  believe  me,  you  have  expended  far  too 
much  trouble  in  studying  my  writings  so  attentively  as  you 
have."  Cuno  soon  found,  however,  that  Swedenborg  was 
not  unfriendly,  and  they  had  pleasant  meetings  when  he  was 
again  in  Amsterdam.  In  1770  he  noted  in  his  memoirs, — 

"  Last  year  I  gave  my  readers  many  sheets  to  read  respect- 
ing my  dear  old  Swedenborg ;  but  I  am  by  no  means  done 
yet  with  this  singular  man,  and  as  long  as  my  eyes  remain 
open,  I  shall  not  so  easily  turn  them  away  from  him.  I  still 
hear  news  concerning  him  from  Sweden,  nay,  a  short  time 
ago  he  desired  to  be  remembered  to  me,  and  sent  me  word 
that  he  hoped  to  embrace  me  this  summer.  The  clergy  have 
made  an  assault  upon  him  with  all  their  power,  but  they 
could  not  do  him  any  harm,  because  those  high  in  authority, 
yea,  it  is  said,  the  King  and  the  Queen,  love  him." 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

STORIES    OF    SPIRITUAL    SIGHT. DR.    BEYER.  —  OPPOSITION   BY 

THE   CLERGY. 

MANY  must  have  been  the  calls  Swedenborg  received  on 
account  of  his  strange  gift  of  spiritual  sight,  of  a  few  of  which 
record  has  been  preserved.  One  is  related  in  the  Theory 
of  Pneumatology  by  J.  H.  Jung-Stilling,  whose  name  is  cited 
in  Kurtz's  Church  History  among  the  five  "most  brilliant 
and  best  known  names  of  the  faithful  sons  of  the  Church  " 
who  withstood  the  rationalistic  spirit  of  the  age  :  — 

"  As  so  very  much  has  been  written  both  for  and  against  this  extra- 
ordinary man,  I  consider  it  my  duty  to  make  known  the  pure  truth 
respecting  him,  since  I  have  had  an  opportunity  of  knowing  it  pure 
and  uncontaminated." 

After  declaring  that  "  Swedenborg  was  no  impostor,  but  a 
pious  Christian  man,"  and  referring  to  the  "three  proofs 
generally  known  that  he  had  actually  intercourse  with  spirits," 
Stilling  continues, — 

"But  I  must  add  here  a  fourth  experimental  proof  which  has  not 
been  made  public  before,  and  which  is  fully  as  important  as  any  of  the 
foregoing.  I  can  vouch  for  the  truth  of  it  with  the  greatest  certainty. 

"  About  the  year  1770  there  was  a  merchant  in  Elberfeld  with  whom, 
during  seven  years  of  my  residence  there,  I  lived  in  close  intimacy. 
He  was  a  strict  mystic  in  the  purest  sense.  He  spoke  little  ;  but  what 
he  said  was  like  golden  fruit  on  a  salver  of  silver.  He  would  not 
have  dared,  for  all  the  world,  knowingly  to  tell  a  falsehood.  This 
friend  of  mine,  who  has  long  ago  left  this  world  for  a  better,  related 
to  me  the  following  story: — 

"  His  business  required  him  to  take  a  journey  to  Amsterdam,  where 
Swedenborg  at  that  time  resided ;  and  having  heard  and  read  much  of 
this  singular  man,  he  formed  the  intention  of  visiting  him  and  becom- 


346  STORIES   OF   SPIRITUAL  SIGHT. 

ing  better  acquainted  with  him.  He  therefore  called  upon  him  and 
found  a  very  venerable-looking,  friendly  old  man  who  received  him 
politely  and  requested  him  to  be  seated,  whereupon  the  following 
conversation  began :  — 

"Merchant.  '  Having  been  called  hither  by  business,  I  could  not  deny 
myself  the  honor,  Sir,  of  paying  my  respects  to  you :  your  writings 
have  caused  me  to  regard  you  as  a  very  remarkable  man.' 
"  Swedenborg.  '  May  I  ask  you  where  you  are  from  ? ' 
"M.  '  I  am  from  Elberfeld,  in  the  Duchy  of  Bsrg.    Your  writings 
contain  so  much  that  is  beautiful  and  edifying,  that  they  have  made  a 
deep  impression  on  me ;  but  the  source  from  whence  you  derive  them 
is  so  extraordinary,  so  strange  and  uncommon,  that  you  will  perhaps 
not  take  it  amiss  of  a  sincere  friend  of  truth  if  he  desire  incontestable 
proofs  that  you  really  have  intercourse  with  the  spiritual  world.' 

"S.  f  It  would  be  very  unreasonable  if  I  took  it  amiss ;  but  I  think  I 
have  given  sufficient  proofs,  which  cannot  be  contradicted.' 

"M.  '  Are  these  the  well-known  ones,  respecting  the  Queen,  the  fire 
in  Stockholm,  and  the  receipt  ? ' 

"S.  '  Yes,  those  are  they,  and  they  are  true.' 

"M.  '  And  yet  many  objections  are  brought  against  them.    Might  I 
venture  to  propose  that  you  give  me  a  similar  proof  ? ' 
"  S.  '  Why  not  ?     Most  willingly.' 

"M.  '  I  had  formerly  a  friend  who  studied  Divinity  at  Duisburg, 
where  he  fell  into  consumption,  of  which  he  died.  I  visited  this  friend 
a  short  time  before  his  decease  ;  we  conversed  together  on  an  import- 
ant topic  :  could  you  learn  from  him  what  was  the  subject  of  our  dis- 
course ? '  r 

"S.  '  We  will  see.     What  was  the  name  of  your  friend  ? ' 
"  The  merchant  told  his  name. 
"S.  '  How  long  do  you  remain  here  ? ' 
"M.    'About  eight  or  ten  days.' 

"S.  '  Call  upon  me  again  in  a  few  days.  I  will  see  if  I  can  find  your 
friend.' 

"  The  merchant  took  his  leave  and  despatched  his  business.  Some 
days  afterwards  he  went  again  to  Swedenborg,  full  of  expectation. 
The  old  gentleman  met  him  with  a  smile  and  said, —  1  have  spoken 
with  your  friend;  the  subject  of  your  discourse  was  the  restitution  of  all 
things?  He  then  related  to  the  merchant  with  the  greatest  precision 
what  he  and  what  his  deceased  friend  had  maintained.  My  friend 
turned  pale,  for  this  proof  was  powerful  and  invincible.  He  inquired 
further, —  'How  fares  it  with  my  friend?  Is  he  in  a  state  of  blessed- 
ness ? '  Swedenborg  answered,  '  No,  he  is  not  yet  in  heaven ;  he  is 
still  in  hades,  and  torments  himself  continually  with  the  idea  of  the 
restitution  of  all  things.'  This  answer  caused  my  friend  the  greatest 


DEATH  OF  PETER  III.  347 

astonishment.  lie  exclaimed, — '  My  God  I  what,  in  the  other  world  ? ' 
Swedenborg  replied, — 'Certainly,  a  man  takes  with  him  his  favorite 
inclinations  and  opinions,  and  it  is  very  difficult  to  be  divested  of 
them :  we  ought  therefore  to  lay  them  aside  here.'  My  friend  took 
his  leave  of  this  remarkable  man,  perfectly  convinced,  and  returned 
back  to  Elberfeld.  .  .  .  That  Swedenborg  for  many  years  had  frequent 
intercourse  with  the  inhabitants  of  the  spiritual  world,  is  not  subject  to 
any  doubt,  but  is  a  settled  fact." 

Another  statement  given  by  Jung- Stilling,  as  he  had  it  from 
"a  certain  beloved  friend  for  many  years,  who  is  far  ad- 
vanced in  Christianity,"  is  as  follows  :  — 

"In  the  year  1762,  on  the  very  day  when  Peter  III.  of  Russia  died, 
Swedenborg  was  present  with  me  [a  God-fearing  friend  of  Stilling's 
friend]  at  a  party  in  Amsterdam.  In  the  middle  of  the  conversation 
his  physiognomy  changed,  and  it  was  evident  that  his  soul  was  no 
longer  present  in  him,  and  that  something  was  taking  place  with  him. 
As  soon  as  he  recovered,  he  was  asked  what  had  happened.  At  first 
he  would  not  speak  out;  but  after  being  repeatedly  urged,  he  said, 
'  Now,  at  this  very  hour,  the  Emperor  Peter  III.  has  died  in  prison,' — 
explaining  the  nature  of  his  death  [strangled  by  order  of  the  Empress], 
'Gentlemen,  will  you  please  make  a  note  of  this  day,  in  order  that  you 
may  compare  it  with  the  announcement  of  his  death  which  will  appear 
in  the  newspapers  ? '  The  papers  soon  after  announced  the  death  of 
the  Emperor,  which  had  taken  place  on  the  very  same  day.  .  .  . 

"  Such  is  the  account  of  my  friend ;  if  any  one  doubts  this  state- 
ment, it  is  a  proof  that  he  has  no  sense  of  what  is  called  historical 
faith  and  its  grounds ;  and  that  he  believes  only  what  he  himself  hears 
and  sees." 

And  yet  Jung-Stilling  himself  preferred  attributing  Sweden- 
borg's  communication  with  the  other  world  to  "  somnambu- 
lism "  and  a  state  of  ecstasy  in  which  spirits  spoke  through 
him, —  a  notion  not  at  all  consistent  with  the  fact  that  Swe- 
denborg never  laid  aside  his  own  reason  and  the  control  of 
his  speech  and  acts.  These  illustrations  of  this  open  com- 
munication we  quote,  not  as  proofs  to  convince  the  incredu- 
lous,—  no  second-hand  testimony  can  do  that, — but  as  a  part 
of  Swedenborg's  daily  life  which  cannot  fairly  be  omitted, 
and  which  indeed  is  necessary  to  complete  our  understand- 
ing of  his  being  present  in  both  worlds  at  once.  As  such 


348  STORIES   OF  SPIRITUAL  SIGHT. 

they  serve  as  confirmation  to  those  who  recognize  the  spirit- 
ual truths  which  this  communication  was  given  to  reveal. 

Of  the  "three  proofs"  to  which  Jung-Stilling  referred,  we 
have  already  seen  the  story  of  Queen  Ulrica  and  her  brother. 
The  second  is  of  the  fire  in  Stockholm  known  to  Swedenborg 
at  Gottenburg ;  and  the  third  is  of  a  mislaid  receipt.  Of  these 
occurrences  Swedenborg  himself  says,  in  a  letter  to  Venator, 
minister  of  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse-Darmstadt, — 

"  These  must  by  no  means  be  regarded  as  miracles ;  for 
they  are  simply  testimonies  that  I  have  been  introduced  by 
the  Lord  into  the  spiritual  world  and  have  intercourse  and 
converse  there  with  angels  and  spirits, — in  order  that  the 
Church,  which  has  hitherto  remained  in  ignorance  concerning 
that  world,  may  know  that  heaven  and  hell  really  exist,  and 
that  man  lives  after  death  a  man  as  before ;  and  that  thus, 
no  more  doubts  may  flow  into  his  mind  in  respect  to  his 
immortality." 

The  occurrence  of  the  Stockholm  fire  is  variously  related. 
Immanuel  Kant's  account,  gathered  by  him  with  great  care 
for  a  correspondent,  seems  most  complete  and  trustworthy, 
with  R.  L.  Tafel's  correction  of  the  date.  Says  Kant, — 

"The  following  occurrence  appears  to  me  to  have  the  greatest 
weight  of  proof,  and  to  place  the  assertion  respecting  Swedenborg's 
extraordinary  gift  beyond  all  possibility  of  doubt :  — 

"In  the  year  1759,  towards  the  end  of  July,  on  Saturday  at  four 
o'clock  P.  M.,  Swedenborg  arrived  at  Gottenburg  from  England,  when 
Mr.  William  Castel  invited  him  to  his  house,  together  with  a  party  of 
fifteen  persons.  About  six  o'clock  Swedenborg  went  out,  and  returned 
to  the  company  quite  pale  and  alarmed.  He  said  that  a  dangerous 
fire  had  just  broken  out  in  Stockholm,  in  the  Sodermalm  (Gotten- 
burg is  about  three  hundred  miles  from  Stockholm),  and  that  it  was 
spreading  very  fast.  He  was  restless  and  went  out  often.  He  said 
that  the  house  of  one  of  his  friends,  whom  he  named,  was  already  in 
ashes,  and  that  his  own  was  in  danger.  At  eight  o'clock,  after  he  had 
been  out  again,  he  joyfully  exclaimed,  'Thank  God!  the  fire  is  extin- 
guished, the  third  door  from  my  house.'  The  news  occasioned  great 
commotion  throughout  the  whole  city,  but  particularly  amongst  the 
company  in  which  he  was.  It  was  announced  to  the  governor  the 
same  evening.  On  Sunday  morning  Swedenborg  was  summoned  to 


THE  LOST    RECEIPT. 


349 


the  governor,  who  questioned  him  concerning  the  disaster.  Sweden- 
borg  described  the  fire  precisely, —  how  it  had  begun,  and  in  what  man- 
ner it  had  ceased,  and  how  it  had  continued.  On  the  same  day  the  news 
spread  through  the  city,  and,  as  the  governor  had  thought  it  worthy 
of  attention,  the  consternation  was  considerably  increased,  because 
many  were  in  trouble  on  account  of  their  friends  and  property  which 
might  have  been  involved  in  the  disaster.  On  Monday  evening  a  mes 
senger  arrived  at  Gottenburg,  who  was  despatched  by  the  Board  of 
Trade  during  the  time  of  the  fire.  In  the  letters  brought  by  him  the 
fire  was  described  precisely  in  the  manner  stated  by  Swedenborg.  On 
Tuesday  morning  the  royal  courier  arrived  at  the  governor's  with  the 
melancholy  intelligence  of  the  fire,  of  the  loss  which  it  had  occasioned, 
and  of  the  houses  it  had  damaged  and  ruined,  not  in  the  least  differing 
from  that  which  Swedenborg  had  given  at  the  very  time  when  it  hap- 
pened ;  for  the  fire  was  extinguished  at  eight  o'clock." 

From  many  different  accounts  of  the  lost  receipt,  agreeing 
in  substance,  we  select  again  that  of  Kant,  confirmed  as  it  is 
in  all  essential  particulars  by  the  secretary  of  the  legation  and 
executor  of  the  estate  :  — 

"Madame  Marteville,  the  widow  of  the  Dutch  Ambassador  in  Stock- 
holm, some  time  after  the  death  of  her  husband,  was  called  upon  by 
Croon,  a  goldsmith,  to  pay  for  a  silver  service  which  her  husband  had 
purchased  from  him.  The  widow  was  convinced  that  her  late  husband 
had  been  much  too  precise  and  orderly  not  to  have  paid  this  debt,  yet 
she  was  unable  to  find  the  receipt.  In  her  sorrow,  and  because  the 
amount  was  considerable,  she  requested  Mr.  Swedenborg  to  call  at  her 
house.  After  apologizing  to  him  for  troubling  him,  she  said  that  if, 
as  all  people  say,  he  possessed  the  extraordinary  gift  of  conversing 
with  the  souls  of  the  departed,  he  would  perhaps  have  the  kindness 
to  ask  her  husband  how  it  was  about  the  silver  service.  Swedenborg 
did  not  at  all  object  to  comply  with  her  request.  Three  days  after- 
wards the  said  lady  had  company  at  her  house  for  coffee.  Sweden- 
borg called,  and  in  his  cool  way  informed  her  that  he  had  conversed 
with  her  husband.  The  debt  had  been  paid  seven  months  before  his 
decease,  and  the  receipt  was  in  a  bureau  in  the  room  upstairs.  The 
lady  replied  that  the  bureau  had  been  quite  cleared  out,  and  that  the 
receipt  was  not  found  among  all  the  papers.  Swedenborg  said  that 
her  husband  had  described  to  him  how,  after  pulling  out  the  left-hand 
drawer,  a  board  would  appear  which  required  to  be  drawn  out,  when  a 
secret  compartment  would  be  disclosed,  containing  his  private  Dutch 
correspondence,  as  well  as  the  receipt.  Upon  hearing  this  description 
the  whole  company  rose  and  accompanied  the  lady  into  the  room  up- 


350 


DR.  BEYER. 


stairs.  The  bureau  was  opened ;  they  did  as  they  were  directed ;  the 
compartment  was  found,  of  which  no  one  had  known  before;  and  to 
the  great  astonishment  of  all,  the  papers  were  discovered  there  in 
accordance  with  his  description." 

This  event,  as  well  as  that  of  the  Queen,  seems  to  have 
occurred  in  the  year  1761, — that  is,  about  the  time  when 
Swedenborg  was  becoming  known  as  the  writer  of  his  theo- 
logical works. 

If  there  were  but  one  name  to  be  handed  down  with 
Swedenborg's  in  connection  with  his  work,  it  should  be  that 
of  Gabriel  Andersson  Beyer,  doctor  and  professor  of  theology 
at  Gottenburg.  Says  Mr.  Wenngren  of  that  city, — 

"About  the  year  1766  Swedenborg  went  to  Gottenburg,  intending  to 
embark  for  England :  when  he  arrived  there,  he  took  his  passage  in  a 
vessel  which  was  to  sail  in  a  few  days.  During  his  stay  at  Gotten- 
burg Dr.  Beyer  accidentally  met  him  in  company,  and  entertaining 
from  report  the  same  sentiments  with  many  others  in  that  country, 
with  respect  to  his  being  a  madman  on  account  of  his  assertion  that 
he  had  communication  with  the  spiritual  world,  he  was  surprised  when 
he  observed  that  Swedenborg  spoke  very  sensibly,  without  discovering 
any  marks  of  that  infirmity  of  which  he  was  suspected ;  he  therefore 
invited  Swedenborg  to  dine  with  him  the  day  following,  in  company 
with  Dr.  Rosen.  After  dinner  Dr.  Beyer  expressed  a  desire,  in  the 
presence  of  Dr.  Rosen,  to  hear  from  himself  a  full  account  of  his  doc- 
trines; upon  which  Swedenborg,  animated  by  the  request,  spoke  so 
clearly  and  in  so  wonderful  a  manner  on  the  subject  that  the  Doctor 
and  his  friend  were  quite  astonished.  They  did  not  interrupt  him ; 
but  when  the  discourse  was  ended,  Dr.  Beyer  requested  Swedenborg 
to  meet  him  the  next  day  at  Mr.  Wenngren's  and  to  bring  with  him 
a  paper  containing  the  substance  of  his  discourse,  that  he  might 
consider  it  more  attentively.  Swedenborg  came  the  day  following, 
according  to  his  promise,  and  taking  the  paper  out  of  his  pocket  in 
the  presence  of  the  other  two  gentlemen,  he  trembled  and  appeared 
much  affected,  the  tears  flowing  down  his  cheeks;  when,  presenting 
the  paper  to  Dr.  Beyer,  'Sir,'  said  he,  'from  this  day  the  Lord  has  in- 
troduced you  into  the  society  of  angels,  and  you  are  now  surrounded 
by  them.'  They  were  all  greatly  affected.  He  then  took  his  leave, 
and  the  next  day  embarked  for  England. 

"  The  Doctor  immediately  sent  for  his  writings,  and  to  arrange  the 
subjects  more  distinctly  in  his  mind  began  the  Index  [to  Swedenborg's 
Theological  Works]  which  as ,  he  prepared  he  sent  sheet  by  sheet  to 


THE  EPISTLES. 


351 


Amsterdam  to  be  printed.  He  was  thirteen  years  in  completing  that 
work,  and  on  the  day  he  sent  off  the  last  sheet  corrected,  he  became 
ill,  took  to  his  bed,  and  in  a  few  days  it  pleased  the  Lord  to  call  him 
to  Himself,  to  bestow  on  him  the  reward  of  his  useful  labors." 

From  the  time  of  Dr.  Beyer's  introduction  to  Sweden- 
borg  he  devoted  all  his  leisure  to  the  study  and  diffusion  of 
his  teachings.  He  taught  them  from  his  professor's  chair, 
preached  them  from  the  pulpit,  and  published  them  in  a 
Catechism  and  a  Course  of  Philosophy.  What  opposition  he 
thus  stirred  up,  we  shall  see  in  his  correspondence  with  Swe- 
denborg.  He  is  described  as  "  a  man  of  the  purest  virtue 
and  of  the  most  amiable  character, — pious,  simple-minded, 
humble,  and  frank ;  gentle  and  conciliatory  with  others,  strict 
and  severe  towards  himself,  faithful  to  his  convictions,  perse- 
vering in  his  undertakings,  and  filled  with  the  warmest  sym- 
pathies for  everything  that  appeared  to  him  beautiful,  true, 
good,  and  sacred." 

We  suspect  that  the  interview  above  described  took  place 
in  the  summer  of  1765,  when  Swedenborg  was  on  his  way 
to  Amsterdam  for  the  purpose  of  printing  The  Apocalypse 
Revealed.  For  on  the  ist  of  October  in  that  year  he  sends 
a  note  to  Dr.  Beyer  with  two  copies  of  the  beginning  of  this 
work,  as  far  as  then  printed.  In  the  next  March  Dr.  Beyer 
writes,  thanking  him  for  the  sheets  he  had  sent,  expressing 
the  joy  he  often  experiences  and  his  delight  in  the  way  "  the 
glorious  truths  are  beginning  to  shine  "  before  him.  Never- 
theless he  is  somewhat  troubled  that  the  Epistles  of  the 
Apostles  are  not  spoken  of  as  the  Word  of  God.  He  begs 
for  light  on  this  point,  and  also  to  see  the  subject  of  marriage 
fully  treated,  and  asks  for  certain  volumes  of  the  Arcana 
C&lestia  he  could  not  obtain. 

On  the  8th  of  April  Swedenborg  sends  him  eight  copies  of 
The  Apocalypse  Revealed,  now  completed, —  one  for  himself, 
the  rest  for  distribution, — and  informs  him  that  he  is  then 
going  to  England,  "where  some  noise  is  probably  being 
made  on  account  of  the  bishops  of  England  being  somewhat 
severely  treated  in  the  Memorable  Relations ;  yet  necessity 


352  DR.   BEYER. 

required  it."     On  the  i5th  of  April  he  answers  Dr.  Beyer's 
question  about  the  Epistles  :  — 

"  In  respect  to  the  writings  of  the  Apostles  and  Paul,  I 
have  not  quoted  them  in  the  Arcana  Calestia,  because  they 
are  doctrinal  writings,  and  consequently  are  not  written  in 
the  style  of  the  Word,  like  those  of  the  Prophets,  of  David, 
of  the  Evangelists,  and  the  Book  of  Revelation.  The  style 
of  the  Word  consists  altogether  of  correspondences,  where- 
fore it  is  effective  of  immediate  communication  with  heaven  ; 
but  in  doctrinal  writings  there  is  a  different  style,  which  has 
indeed  communication  with  heaven,  but  mediately.  They 
were  written  thus  by  the  Apostles,  that  the  new  Christian 
Church  might  be  commenced  through  them ;  wherefore  mat- 
ters of  doctrine  could  not  be  written  in  the  style  of  the  Word, 
but  they  had  to  be  expressed  in  such  a  manner  as  to  be  un- 
derstood more  clearly  and  intimately.  The  writings  of  the 
Apostles  are,  nevertheless,  good  books  of  the  Church,  insist- 
ing upon  the  doctrine  of  charity  and  its  faith  as  strongly  as 
the  Lord  Himself  has  done  in  the  Gospels  and  the  Book  of 
Revelation." 

In  August  he  writes  from  London  :  — 

"Reverend  Doctor, — I  send  you  herewith  a  complete  set 
of  the  Arcana  Ccelestia,  and  likewise  the  last  volume  of  those 
which  were  still  wanting  in  yours ;  they  are  however  all  un- 
bound. I  thought  at  first  of  bringing  them  to  you  myself; 
but  I  changed  my  mind  about  travelling  to  Gottenburg,  as  an 
opportunity  offered  of  going  to  Stockholm  directly,  which  will 
be  next  week.  Should  any  one  be  able  to  make  use  of  my 
travelling  carriage  on  his  way  to  Stockholm,  or  should  any 
one  wish  to  buy  it,  it  may  be  left  to  them." 

This  was  the  passage  he  made  in  one  week  with  Captain 
Dixon.  Swedenborg  thus  speaks  of  it  in  his  next  letter, 
from  Stockholm,  Sept.  25,  1766  :  — 

"  I  arrived  here  as  early  as  September  8.  The  trip  from 
England  was  made  in  eight  days  ;  a  favorable  wind  increasing 
to  a  perfect  storm  carried  the  ship  along  in  this  style. 


THE   NEW   CHURCH.  353 

"  I  wish  much  blessing  to  the  intended  '  Collection  of  Ser- 
mons,' and  I  send  you  herewith  my  subscription  for  it.  I 
presume  you  will  use  all  necessary  precaution  in  this  work, 
because  the  time  has  not  yet  arrived  when  the  essentials  of 
the  New  Church  can  be  received  in  this  manner.  It  is  diffi- 
cult to  convince  the  clergy,  who  have  been  confirmed  in  their 
dogmas  at  the  universities ;  for  all  confirmations  in  matters 
of  theology  are,  as  it  were,  glued  fast  in  the  brain  and  can 
with  difficulty  be  removed,  and  as  long  as  they  are  there, 
genuine  truths  can  have  no  place.  Besides,  the  New  Heaven 
of  Christians  out  of  which  the  New  Jerusalem  will  descend 
from  the  Lord  (Rev.  xxi.  i,  2),  is  not  yet  fully  established." 

In  February,  1767,  Swedenborg  writes  to  Beyer, — 

"  Several  questions  have  been  propounded  to  me  by  your 
friend,  to  which  you  will  please  receive  the  following  as  an 
answer :  — 

"I.    My  opinion  concerning  the  writings  of  Bohme  and 

L .     I  have  never  read  either ;  I  was  forbidden  to  read 

writers  on  dogmatic  and  systematic  theology  before  heaven 
was  opened  to  me,  because  unfounded  opinions  and  inven- 
tions might  thereby  have  easily  insinuated  themselves,  which 
afterwards  could  only  have  been  removed  with  difficulty; 
wherefore,  when  heaven  was  opened  to  me  I  had  first  to 
learn  the  Hebrew  language,  as  well  as  the  correspondences 
according  to  which  the  whole  Bible  is  composed,  which  led 
me  to  read  the  Word  of  God  over  many  times  ;  and  as  God's 
Word  is  the  source  whence  all  theology  must  be  derived,  I 
was  enabled  thereby  to  receive  instruction  from  the  Lord, 
who  is  the  Word." 

"  II.  Query :  How  soon  a  New  Church  may  be  expected. 
Answer  :  the  Lord  is  preparing  at  this  time  a  New  Heaven  of 
those  who  believe  in  Him,  acknowledge  Him  as  the  true  God 
of  heaven  and  earth,  and  look  to  Him  in  their  lives, — which 
means  to  shun  evil  and  do  good ;  for  from  that  heaven  the 
New  Jerusalem  is  to  come  down  (Rev.  xxi.  2).  I  daily  see 
spirits  and  angels,  from  ten  to  twenty  thousand,  descending 

23 


354 


DR.   BEYER. 


and  ascending,  and  being  set  in  order.  By  degrees,  as  that 
heaven  is  being  formed,  the  New  Church  likewise  begins 
and  increases.  The  universities  in  Christendom  are  now  first 
being  instructed,  whence  will  come  new  ministers;  for  the 
New  Heaven  has  no  influence  over  the  old  [clergy],  who 
deem  themselves  too  learned  in  the  doctrine  of  justification 
by  faith  alone." 

"As  here  [in  Stockholm]  they  now  begin  to  think  more 
of  charity  than  before,  asserting  that  faith  and  charity  cannot 
be  separated,  therefore  faith  alone  begins  also  to  be  called 
Moravian  faith." 

It  is  noteworthy  that  Swedenborg  was  looking  to  the  Chris- 
tian universities  for  the  reception  and  propagation  of  the 
faith  of  the  New  Heaven  and  New  Church.  On  this  account 
we  find  him  distributing  his  works  among  these  universities 
and  libraries  with  a  free  hand,  till  the  editions  were  exhausted. 
Witness  the  following  note  to  the  Secretary  of  State  in  Stock- 
holm :  — 

"I  have  at  last  finished  the  explanation  of  the  Book  of 
Revelation  and  circulated  it  in  all  the  universities  in  Holland, 
Germany,  France,  and  England,  and  am  going  to  send  sev- 
enty copies  to  Stockholm,  of  which  your  honor  will  please 
take  five  and  give  them  to  the  following  senators, —  Senator 
Hb'pken,  Senator  Scheffer,  likewise  to  Nordencrantz,  the 
Councillor  of  Commerce,  and  Bishops  Menander  and  Sere- 
nius ;  the  other  five  you  will  please  to  distribute  among  your 
friends.  The  remaining  sixty  copies  I  desire  to  be  kept  safe 
until  my  return  home.  I  intend  to  distribute  them  among 
the  academies  and  libraries  of  Sweden,  and  among  clergymen 
who  are  qualified  for  a  more  than  ordinary  position.  Four  I 
intend  to  present  to  the  Court,  and  the  remainder  to  univer- 
sities and  theological  seminaries  in  foreign  parts." 

Doubtless  for  the  most  part  these  books  were  soon  shelved, 
if  not  consigned  to  still  greater  obscurity.  Yet  very  many 
inquiring  men  must  have  looked  into  them  at  one  time  and 
another;  and  the  amount  of  direct  effect  they  have  had, 


THE   NEW  CHURCH.  35$ 

through  these  very  universities,  in  bringing  about  the  more 
rational  and  Scriptural  views  on  doctrinal  points  that  now  so 
widely  prevail,  is  incalculable. 

In  March,  1769,  Swedenborg  writes  again  to  Dr.  Beyer, — 

"I  had  the  pleasure  of  receiving  yours  of  Nov.  23,  1768. 
The  reason  I  did  not  answer  it  sooner  was  that  I  postponed 
until  a  little  work  was  published,  entitled  A  Brief  Exposition 
of  the  Doctrine  of  the  New  Church  signified  by  the  New 
Jerusalem  in  the  Book  of  Revelation,  in  which  work  are  fully 
shown  the  errors  of  the  hitherto  received  doctrine  of  justifi- 
cation by  faith  alone,  and  the  imputation  of  the  righteous- 
ness or  merit  of  Christ.  This  treatise  was  sent  by  me  to  all 
the  clergy  in  Holland,  and  will  come  into  the  hands  of  the 
most  eminent  in  Germany.  I  have  been  informed  that  they 
have  attentively  perused  it,  and  that  some  have  already  dis- 
covered the  truth,  while  others  do  not  know  which  way  to 
turn ;  for  what  is  written  therein  is  sufficient  to  convince  any 
one  that  the  above-mentioned  doctrine  is  the  cause  of  our 
having  at  the  present  day  no  theology  in  Christendom." 

"  Here  [in  Amsterdam]  they  frequently  inquire  of  me  re- 
specting the  New  Church,  when  it  will  come.  To  which  I 
answer, —  By  degrees,  in  proportion  as  the  doctrine  of  justi- 
fication and  imputation  is  extirpated  :  which  perhaps  will  be 
brought  about  by  this  work.  It  is  known  that  the  Christian 
Church  did  not  take  its  rise  immediately  after  the  ascension 
of  Christ,  but  increased  gradually,  which  is  also  meant  by 
these  words  in  the  Revelation, —  'And  the  woman  flew  into 
the  desert,  into  her  place,  where  she  is  nourished  for  a 
time,  times,  and  half  a  time,  from  the  face  of  the  serpent* 
(xii.  14).  The  serpent  or  dragon  is  that  doctrine." 

In  November,  1769,  in  answer  to  Dr.  Beyer's  request  for 
some  account  of  his  early  life,  Swedenborg  says, — 

"From  my  fourth  to  rny  tenth  year  I  was  constantly  en- 
gaged in  thought  upon  God,  salvation,  and  the  spiritual  expe- 
riences of  men ;  and  some  times  I  revealed  things  at  which 
my  father  and  mother  wondered,  saying  that  an  angel  must 


356          OPPOSITION  BY  THE  CLERGY. 

be  speaking  through  me.  From  my  sixth  to  my  twelfth  year 
I  used  to  delight  in  conversing  with  clergymen  about  faith, 
saying  that  the  life  of  faith  is  love,  and  that  the  love  which 
imparts  life  is  love  to  the  neighbor ;  also  that  God  gives  faith 
to  every  one,  but  that  those  only  receive  it  who  practise  that 
love.  I  knew  of  no  other  faith,  at  that  time,  than  that  God 
is  the  Creator  and  Preserver  of  nature,  that  He  imparts  un- 
derstanding and  a  good  disposition  to  men,  and  many  other 
things  that  follow  thence.  I  knew  nothing  then  of  that 
learned  faith  which  teaches  that  God  the  Father  imputes  the 
righteousness  of  His  Son  to  whomsoever,  and  whenever,  He 
chooses,  even  to  those  who  have  not  repented  and  have 
not  reformed  their  lives.  And  had  I  heard  of  such  a  faith, 
it  would  have  been  then,  as  it  is  now,  above  my  compre- 
hension. 

For  a  while  Dr.  Beyer  and  his  friend  Dr.  Rose"n,  who  also 
was  a  professor  at  Gottenburg,  studied  Swedenborg's  writ- 
ings and  adopted  his  doctrines  in  their  teachings  without 
molestation.  But  in  time  the  more  bigoted  theologians  per- 
ceived that  their  own  dogmas  on  the  tri-personality  and  on 
justification  by  faith  alone  were  being  undermined ;  they 
became  alarmed,  and  attempted  through  the  Consistory  at 
Gottenburg  to  obtain  an  injunction  on  the  propagation  of 
Swedenborg's  doctrines.  Dr.  Beyer  and  Dr.  Rose"n  pro- 
tested against  any  such  arbitrary  action,  when  no  suitable 
investigation  had  been  held.  The  matter  was  referred  to 
the  House  of  the  Clergy,  and  in  this  House  to  the  Privy 
Council.  Swedenborg's  own  view  of  the  matter  appears 
clearly  in  the  following  letter  to  Dr.  Beyer,  dated  Stock- 
holm, April  12,  1770  :  — 

"  Reverend  Doctor  and  Lector, — Only  two  days  ago  I  re- 
ceived your  favor  of  the  2ist  of  March  last,  and  on  reading 
it  through  I  was  surprised  at  the  reports,  which  are  said  to 
have  reached  Gottenburg  from  Stockholm,  to  the  effect  that 
you  and  Dr.  Rosen  are  to  be  deposed,  deprived  of  office, 
and  banished  from  the  country,  a  report  to  which  I  certainly 


SWEDENBORG'S   DEFENCE. 


357 


can  give  no  credence ;  for  it  contradicts  my  reason  in  the 
highest  degree  to  believe  that  a  person  may  be  deprived  of 
office  and  banished  from  the  country  on  the  mere  allegation 
of  his  being  heretical,  without  the  principal  point  of  accusa- 
tion against  him  being  investigated.  In  the  printed  minutes 
I  cannot  find  that  they  have  taken  a  single  step  in  regard  to 
the  question  itself,  but  that  they  have  simply  busied  them- 
selves in  making  attacks  in  abusive  and  unseemly  language, 
when  yet  the  real  point  at  issue  is  this,  whether  it  is  allowable 
to  approach  immediately  our  Redeemer  and  Saviour  Jesus 
Christ,  or  whether  we  must  go  a  circuitous  way,  namely,  to 
God  the  Father,  that  He  may  impute  to  us  the  merit  and 
righteousness  of  His  Son,  and  send  the  Holy  Spirit.  But  that 
we  may  go  the  other,  which  is  the  direct  way,  namely,  to  our 
Saviour,  Jesus  Christ,  is  in  accordance  both  with  the  Augs- 
burg Confession  and  the  Formula  Concordicz,  and  also  with 
our  own  prayers  and  hymns;  and  it  entirely  agrees  with 
God's  Word. 

"  In  the  Augsburg  Confession  are  the  following  words : 
'For  the  Scripture  sets  before  us  Christ  alone  as  the  Me- 
diator, the  Propitiator,  the  High  Priest,  and  the  Intercessor; 
He  is  to  be  invoked  or  addressed ;  and  He  has  promised 
that  He  will  hear  our  prayers  ;  and  the  Sacred  Scripture  very 
greatly  approves  of  this  worship,  namely,  that  He  should  be 
invoked  in  all  afflictions '  ( i  John  ii.  i ) . 

"  In  the  Formula  Concordice  are  these  words :  '  We  have 
a  command  that  we  should  call  upon  Christ,  according  to 
this  saying,  Come  unto  Me  all  ye  that  labor,  etc.,  which  is 
certainly  addressed  to  us ;  and  Isaiah  says,  chap.  xi.  10, 
And  in  that  day  there  shall  be  a  root  of  Jesse,  which  shall 
stand  for  an  ensign  of  the  people  :  on  Him  shall  the  na- 
tions call.  And  in  Psalm  xlv.  12,  The  rich  among  the 
people  shall  entreat  Thy  countenance.  And  in  Psalm  Ixxii. 
ii,  And  all  kings  of  the  earth  shall  fall  down  before  Him. 
And  in  another  verse,  15,  They  shall  pray  before  Him  con- 
tinually. And  in  John  v.  23,  Christ  says,  All  shall  honor 


358  OPPOSITION. 

the  Son,  even  as  they  honor  the  Father.  See  also  Paul  in 
i  Thess.  ii.'  These  are  the  identical  words  quoted  from  the 
work. 

"  In  our  hymn-book  are  prayers  and  hymns  addressed  to 
Jesus  Christ  alone,  as  Hymn  266,  of  which  I  will  quote  only 
what  follows  :  — 

Lo !  Jesus  is  my  might ; 
He  is  my  heart's  delight. 

0  Jesus,  hear  my  voice  ! 

If  I  of  Christ  make  sure, 

1  '11  ever  feel  secure, 

And  freed  from  all  my  sins. 

As  Jesus  is  my  shield, 
I  '11  ne'er  to  Satan  yield 
Tho'  he  against  me  rage. 

My  cares  and  all  my  woe 
On  Him  alone  I  '11  throw, 
Who  is  my  strength  and  guard. 

By  day  and  night  I  '11  rest 
All  safe  on  Jesus'  breast, 
In  whom  alone  I  trust. 

"  Besides  all  this,  two  of  my  letters  which  have  been  in- 
serted and  printed  in  the  Gottenburg  Minutes,  contain 
numerous  proofs,  adduced  from  the  whole  of  the  Formula 
ConcordicK,  that  our  Saviour,  even  as  to  His  Humanity,  is 
God ;  which  Luther  and  the  Formula  Concordice  corroborate 
with  all  their  power,  and  which  is  also  in  agreement  with  the 
entire  Word  of  God.  In  proof  of  this  I  refer  you  only  to 
Col.  ii.  9  ;  i  John  v.  20,  21.  More  to  the  same  purport  has 
been  adduced  from  one  of  my  works,  an  extract  from  which 
may  be  found  in  the  printed  Minutes  of  the  Gottenburg  Con- 
sistory. This  doctrine  they  there  call  '  Swedenborgianism  ' ; 
but  for  my  part  I  call  it  Genuine  Christianity." 

At  different  stages  of  the  controversy,  Swedenborg  sent 
several  vigorous  communications  to  the  Consistory,  Privy 


CONFISCATION   OF   BOOKS. 


359 


Council,  and  King,  and,  as  we  have  seen  in  his  letter  to  Gen- 
eral Tuxen,  was  told  by  the  King  that  his  opponents  would 
not  make  any  reply  to  the  Royal  summons.  But  the  King, 
it  would  appear,  had  underrated  the  hostility  of  these  defend- 
ers of  the  faith-alone  doctrine,  and  was  himself  compelled  to 
make  some  concessions  in  order  to  maintain  his  own  ortho- 
doxy. By  a  Royal  Resolution  of  April  26,  1770,  the  Con- 
sistory of  Gottenburg  was  authorized  to  summon  before  it 
Doctors  Beyer  and  Rose"n,  to  inform  them  of  the  royal  dis- 
pleasure, and  to  seek  to  convince  them  of  their  errors.  By 
a  second  Resolution  of  the  same  date  orders  were  given  for 
seeking  out  and  confiscating  the  theological  works  of  Assessor 
Svvedenborg,  and  to  enforce  the  Royal  Resolution  of  1735 
prohibiting  the  delivery  of  books  imported  from  abroad,  be- 
fore permission  should  be  granted  by  the  executive  of  the 
nearest  Consistory.  These  Resolutions  were  a  great  surprise 
to  Swedenborg.  He  knew  how  the  persecution  had  arisen, 
but  underestimated  its  strength.  To  General  Tuxen  he  wrote 
on  the  first  of  May,  before  learning  of  the  Resolutions,  — 

"  The  affair  took  its  rise  at  Gottenburg,  principally  from 
the  Dean.  The  deputies  of  that  place  having  been  in- 
structed to  complain  of  me  and  of  Dr.  Beyer  to  the  Diet, 
they  pushed  matters  as  far  as  they  could,  but  would  never 
have  effected  anything  had  not  Bishop  Filenius,  who  was 
then  the  Speaker  in  the  House  of  the  Clergy,  taken  up  the 
matter,  and  by  cunning  and  craft  gained  over  a  crowd  in 
the  House.  This  the  Bishop  did  at  first  from  secret  dislike, 
and  afterwards  from  malice.  The  result  was  that  a  commit- 
tee was  appointed  in  the  House  of  the  Clergy  on  the  Swe- 
denborgian  cause.  Whilst  they  deliberated  on  this  subject  I 
did  not  hear  a  word  of  it,  as  all  was  carried  on  with  secrecy ; 
yet  the  committee,  which  consisted  of  bishops  and  profes- 
sors, found  the  matter  quite  different  from  what  Bishop  File- 
nius had  represented:  they  concluded  in  my  favor,  and 
expressed  themselves  in  the  House  with  respect  to  myself 
very  handsomely  and  reasonably.  Bishop  Filenius,  never- 


360  OPPOSITION. 

theless,  succeeded  in  having  a  memorial  submitted  to  his 
Royal  Majesty  and  the  Privy  Council  to  this  effect,  that 
the  Chancellor  of  Justice  should  endeavor  to  quell  the  dis- 
orders which  had  arisen  at  Gottenburg;  whereupon  the 
Chancellor  of  Justice  sent  a  letter  to  the  Consistories  that 
they  should  express  themselves  in  regard  to  this  matter ;  and 
after  their  opinions  had  been  received,  the  affair  occupied 
the  Privy  Council  for  two  days ;  and  not  until  then  did  I 
come  forward  with  the  enclosed  letter  which  was  read  be- 
fore the  Council.  The  conclusion  is  contained  in  a  letter 
addressed  by  the  Chancellor  of  Justice  to  the  Consistory  of 
Gottenburg,  which  is  not  against  me,  and  the  particulars  of 
which  I  shall  relate  to  you  some  other  time.  Of  all  this  I 
knew  nothing  while  it  was  being  discussed;  but,  enjoying 
the  calm  in  my  chamber,  I  allowed  the  storm  to  rage  as 
much  as  it  pleased  outside  :  for  it  had  been  resolved  in  the 
Diet,  as  well  as  in  the  Privy  Council,  that  my  person  should 
not  be  touched." 

On  learning  the.  Resolutions  issued  a  few  days  before, 
Swedenborg  on  the  loth  of  May  addressed  the  following 
letter  to  the  King  :  — 

" Most  powerful  and  most  gracious  King, — I  feel  com- 
pelled at  this  juncture  to  have  recourse  to  your  Majesty's 
protection ;  for  I  have  been  treated  as  no  one  has  ever  been 
treated  before  in  Sweden  since  the  introduction  of  Christ- 
ianity, and  still  less  since  the  establishment  of  freedom  here. 
I  will  first  give  you  a  brief  account  of  things  as  they  have 
happened.  Upon  my  return  from  abroad  the  last  time,  I 
was  informed  that  Bishop  Filenius  had  confiscated  my  work 
De  Amore  Conjugiali,  which  had  appeared  in  Holland  and 
been  sent  to  Norrkoping.1  I  therefore  immediately  inquired 

1  Robsahm  tells  us  in  his  memoirs  that  "  Swedenborg  had  ordered  for  the 
Diet  in  Norrkoping,  1769,  a  small  box  of  his  works  from  England,  which  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  regulations  of  customs  was  detained  in  the  custom  house,  on 
account  of  their  containing  foreign  or  heterodox  thoughts  on  religion.  Swe- 
denborg, therefore,  asked  a  clergyman  [Bishop  Filenius],  one  of  his  influential 
relatives,  to  get  this  box  released  for  him,  because  he  desired  to  distribute 


LETTER   TO   THE   KING.  361 

of  some  bishops  whether  this  had  been  authorized  by  the 
House  of  the  Clergy ;  they  answered  that  they  were  aware 
of  the  confiscation,  but  that  no  general  action  had  been 
taken,  and  that  not  a  word  about  it  had  been  entered  on  the 
minutes.  Immediately  afterwards  the  clergy  from  Gottenburg 
made  a  noise  in  their  House  about  my  books,  and  pushed 
matters  so  far  that  the  House  appointed  a  committee  on 
'  Swedenborgianism,'  which  consisted  of  bishops  and  profes- 
sors. This  committee  sat  for  several  months,  and  at  last 
reported  handsomely  and  reasonably  on  that  subject,  and 
thereby  suppressed  completely  the  disturbance  which  had 
been  made ;  but  to  put  an  end  to  it  still  more  effectually,  it 
was  resolved  that  a  humble  memorial  should  be  addressed 
to  your  Royal  Majesty,  requesting  that  the  Chancellor  of 
Justice  should  inquire  about  the  disturbances  which  had 
arisen  in  Gottenburg.  When  the  Bishop  and  the  Dean  of 
that  place,  who  are  the  torch  and  trumpet  in  this  affair,  dis- 
covered that  they  made  no  progress  in  the  reverend  House  of 
the  Clergy,  they,  to  stir  up  and  kindle  the  flame  anew,  com- 
menced a  publication  of  twenty  sheets  or  more  about  '  Swe- 
denborgianism,' which  is  filled  with  invectives ;  and  after  this 
had  been  sent  to  Stockholm,  the  matter  was  taken  up  and 
settled  by  your  Majesty  in  the  Privy  Council,  in  consequence 
of  which  the  Chancellor  of  Justice  despatched  to  the  Consis- 
tory of  Gottenburg  an  official  letter,  wherein  I  have  reason 
to  think  he  assented  to  the  opinion  expressed  by  the  Con- 
sistory. 

"  I  received  no  more  intimation  than  a  child  in  the  cradle 
of  all  that  took  place,  of  the  committee  in  the  reverend  House 

the  books  among  the  members  of  the  various  Houses  of  the  Diet.  This  man 
assured  Swedenborg  that  he  would,  and  on  leaving  embraced  and  kissed  him  ; 
but  when  he  went  up  to  the  House,  it  was  he  who  insisted  most  strongly  that 
the  books  should  not  be  released."  Oddly  enough  some  years  later  a  book- 
collector  found  a  grocer  using  these  same  books,  De  Amore  Conjugiali,  for 
wrapping  paper,  and  was  able  to  save  a  considerable  number  of  copies  entire. 
This  reminds  us  of  Bishop  Swedberg's  plaintive  expectation  that  his  own  cart- 
loads of  printed  sheets  prohibited  by  the  hostile  censors,  would  be  used  after 
his  death  "  by  woman-kind  to  wrap  cakes  and  pies." 


362  OPPOSITION. 

of  the  Clergy,  of  the  memorial  they  submitted  to  your  Royal 
Majesty,  of  the  publication  in  Gottenburg  on  'Swedenborg- 
ianism,'  of  the  Resolution  which  was  passed  by  your  Royal 
Majesty  in  the  Privy  Council,  and  of  the  letter  embodying  it 
which  was  despatched  to  the  Consistory  in  Gottenburg.  Of 
all  this,  from  beginning  to  end,  I  received  not  the  least  inti- 
mation :  all  was  done  without  my  receiving  a  hearing,  when 
yet  the  whole  matter  was  about  'Swedenborgianism  ; '  and  the. 
papers  printed  in  Gottenburg  are  filled  with  coarse  and  rep- 
rehensible language  without  touching  materially  the  subject  of 
'Swedenborgianism,'  which  is  the  worship  of  the  Lord  our 
Saviour.  Of  these  printed  papers  I  had  no  other  knowledge 
than  what  I  received  from  a  general  commissary  of  war 
[Tuxen]  at  Elsinore,  and  afterwards  from  a  friend  here  in 
Stockholm  who  lent  them  to  me  for  a  day.  Wherefore  I  still 
insist  that  everything  that  has  taken  place  since  my  return 
home  has  from  beginning  to  end  been  done  without  giving 
me  a  hearing. 

"From  a  rumor  which  has  spread  here  in  town  I  have 
learned  that  from  the  office  of  the  Chancellor  of  Justice 
a  communication  has  been  made  to  the  Consistory  of  Gotten- 
burg, to  the  effect  that  my  books  have  been  entirely  forbidden 
to  be  imported  into  this  country,  and  further  that  the  same 
office  has  stigmatized  my  revelations  as  untrue  and  false.  In 
reply  to  this  I  humbly  beg  to  make  the  following  statement : 
That  our  Saviour  visibly  revealed  Himself  before  me,  and 
commanded  me  to  do  what  I  have  done,  and  what  I  have 
still  to  do ;  and  that  thereupon  He  permitted  me  to  have 
intercourse  with  angels  and  spirits  I  have  declared  before 
the  whole  of  Christendom,  as  well  in  England,  Holland,  Ger- 
many, and  Denmark,  as  in  France  and  Spain,  and  also  on 
various  occasions  in  this  country  before  their  Royal  Majesties, 
and  especially  when  I  enjoyed  the  grace  to  eat  at  their  table, 
in  the  presence  of  the  whole  royal  family,  and  also  of  five 
senators  and  others ;  at  which  time  my  mission  constituted 
the  sole  topic  of  conversation.  Subsequently,  also,  I  have 


LETTER  TO  THE  KING.  363 

revealed  this  before  many  senators ;  and  among  these  Count 
Tessin,  Count  Bonde,  and  Count  Hopken  have  found  it  in 
truth  to  be  so  :  and  Count  Hopken,  a  gentleman  of  enlight- 
ened understanding,  still  continues  to  believe  so,  without 
mentioning  many  others,  as  well  at  home  as  abroad,  among 
whom  are  both  kings  and  princes.  All  this,  however,  the 
office  of  the  Chancellor  of  Justice,  if  the  rumor  is  correctly 
stated,  declares  to  be  false ;  when  yet  it  is  the  truth.  Should 
they  reply  that  the  thing  is  inconceivable  to  them,  I  have 
nothing  to  gainsay,  since  I  am  unable  to  put  the  state  of  my 
sight  and  speech  into  their  heads,  in  order  to  convince  them ; 
nor  am  I  able  to  cause  angels  and  spirits  to  converse  with 
them ;  nor  do  miracles  happen  now :  but  their  very  reason 
will  enable  them  to  see  this,  when  they  thoughtfully  read  my 
writings,  wherein  much  may  be  found  which  has  never  before 
been  discovered,  and  which  cannot  be  discovered  except  by 
real  vision  and  intercourse  with  those  who  are  in  the  spiritual 
world.  In  order  that  reason  may  see  and  acknowledge  this, 
I  beg  that  one  of  your  Excellencies  may  peruse  what  has 
been  said  on  this  subject  in  my  book,  De  Amore  Conjugiali, 
in  a  Memorable  Relation  on  pp.  314-316:  his  Excellency 
Count  Ekeblad  and  his  Excellency  Count  Bjelke  possess  the 
book.  If  any  doubt  should  still  remain,  I  am  ready  to  testify 
with  the  most  solemn  oath  that  may  be  prescribed  to  me  that 
this  is  the  whole  truth  and  a  reality,  without  the  least  fallacy. 
That  our  Saviour  permits  me  to  experience  this  is  not  on  my 
own  account,  but  for  the  sake  of  a  sublime  interest  which  con- 
cerns the  eternal  welfare  of  all  Christians.  Since  such  is  the 
real  state  of  things,  it  is  wrong  to  declare  it  to  be  untruth  and 
falsity ;  although  it  may  be  pronounced  to  be  something  that 
cannot  be  comprehended. 

"If  now  the  rumor  which  has  been  spread  is  c'orrect, — 
namely,  that  such  things  are  contained  in  the  letter  which 
was  sent  from  the  office  of  the  Chancellor  of  Justice  to  the 
Consistory  of  Gottenburg, —  it  follows  hence  that  my  books 
are  declared  to  be  heretical,  and  that  I  am  declared  to  speak 


364  OPPOSITION. 

untruths  and  falsehoods  in  matters  of  revelation ;  and  further, 
that,  from  beginning  to  end,  all  this  has  been  determined 
upon  without  giving  me  a  hearing.  What  else  results  from 
this,  but  that,  in  agreement  with  the  Resolution,  any  severe 
treatment  may  be  brought  forward  by  the  Consistory  of 
Gottenburg  and  Bishop  Filenius,  and  sentence  may  be  pro- 
nounced upon  me,  without  my  being  heard  in  the  affair  at 
all ;  for  of  what  use  is  a  declaration  or  a  defence  after  the 
sentence  has  been  pronounced? 

"This  is  the  reason  why,  as  I  said  above,  'I  am  compelled 
to  have  recourse  to  your  Majesty,  since  I  have  been  treated 
as  no  one  has  ever  been  treated  before  in  Sweden  since  the 
introduction  of  Christianity,  and  still  less  since  the  establish- 
ment of  freedom,'  by  being  treated  as  I  have  been,  without  a 
hearing  having  been  granted  me. 

"As  this,  however,  concerns  not  only  my  writings,  but 
as  a  natural  consequence  my  person  also,  I  make  a  humble 
request  that  the  memorial  should  be  communicated  to  me 
which  was  addressed  to  your  Royal  Majesty  in  this  matter  by 
the  House  of  the  Clergy,  likewise  the  minutes  of  the  Privy 
Council,  and  the  letter  which  was  despatched  from  the  office 
of  the  Chancellor  of  Justice  to  the  Consistory  of  Gottenburg, 
in  order  that  I  may  at  once  be  heard,  and  may  show  forth 
the  whole  of  my  treatment  before  the  public  at  large. 

"  In  respect  to  Doctors  Beyer  and  Rose"n  of  Gottenburg, 
I  have  given  them  no  other  advice  than  that  they  should 
approach  our  Saviour,  JESUS  CHRIST,  to  whom  all  power  has 
been  given  in  heaven  and  on  earth  (Matt,  xxviii.  18),  and 
should  strive  after  their  salvation  ;  and  as  far  as  I  have  been 
able  to  learn  they  have  affirmed  and  insisted  upon  that  one 
point,  which  is  also  in  conformity  with  the  Augsburg  Confes- 
sion, the  Formula  Concordia,  and  the  whole  Word  of  God ; 
nevertheless  for  this  acknowledgment  alone  they  have  be- 
come to  a  certain  extent  martyrs,  at  least  so  far  as  regards  the 
cruel  persecutions  of  the  Bishop  and  the  Dean  of  that  town. 
The  same  expression  also  I  apply  to  my  books,  which  I  regard 


TRUE  CHRISTIAN   RELIGION.  365 

as  my  own  self,  when,  nevertheless,  all  that  the  Dean  of  Got- 
tenburg  has  poured  out  against  them  consists  of  sheer  invec- 
tives, which  do  not  contain  a  particle  of  truth. 

"Your  Royal  Majesty's  most  humble  and  most  dutiful 
servant  and  subject, 

"  EMANUEL  SWEDENBORG." 

No  answer  was  received  to  this  letter ;  perhaps  none  was 
expected.  The  matter  came  up  again  before  the  Privy 
Council,  and  was  deferred.  In  July  Swedenborg  went  to 
Amsterdam  to  publish  The  True  Christian  Religion,  after 
sending  copies  of  his  letter  to  the  King,  to  the  Chancellor  of 
Justice,  and  to  the  three  Swedish  Universities.  On  the  part  of 
his  opponents  it  was  held  that  the  Privy  Council  was  the  head 
ruler  in  religious  matters.  Swedenborg  contended  that  the 
Council  was  but  the  vicar  of  the  Houses  of  the  Diet,  and  that 
they  again  were  but  the  vicar  of  the  Lord,  the  real  Head  of 
the  Church.  As  the  persecution  of  Doctors  Beyer  and  Rose"n 
still  continued,  he  wrote  to  Dr.  Beyer  in  April,  1771, — 

"  I  wonder  that  they  keep  stirring  up  this  affair  at  Gotten- 
burg ;  I  will  complain  of  them  at  the  next  Diet,  when  I  send 
over  my  Universa  Theologia  Novi  Coeli  et  Nova  Ecclesice 
('The  True  Christian  Religion'),  which  will  leave  the  press 
towards  the  close  of  the  month  of  June.  I  will  send  two 
copies  of  this  work  to  each  House,  and  request  them  to  ap- 
point for  its  consideration  a  general  committee  from  all  the 
Houses,  in  order  to  put  an  end  to  the  affair  in  this  way.  I 
am  certain  of  this,  that,  after  the  appearance  of  the  book 
referred  to,  the  Lord  our  Saviour  will  operate  both  mediately 
and  immediately  towards  the  establishment  throughout  the 
whole  of  Christendom  of  a  New  Church  based  on  this  '  The- 
ology.' The  New  Heaven,  out  of  which  the  New  Jerusalem 
will  descend,  will  very  soon  be  completed." 

In  The  True  Christian  Religion  thus  announced,  Swe- 
denborg printed  an  account  of  a  discussion  in  a  council  of 
the  clergy  in  the  world  of  spirits,  on  their  former  tenets. 


366 


OPPOSITION. 


Near  the  conclusion  of  the  discussion,  in  which  Svvedenborg 
himself  had  taken  an  active  part,  one  arose  and  declared  that 
he  himself  was  intimately  associated  with  a  man  still  in  the 
world,  of  eminent  station,  from  whom  he  had  gained  the  idea 
that  Swedenborg's  views  partook  of  Mahometanism.  The 
eminent  man,  he  said,  lived  at  Gottenburg.  An  uproar  arose 
in  the  assembly,  and  Swedenborg  denounced  the  charges 
of  materialism  and  Mahometanism,  as  inventions  to  deter 
men  from  the  worship  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  He  then  re- 
quested the  speaker  to  desire  his  friend  to  read  what  is  said 
in  the  Apocalypse,  iii.  18  ;  and  also  ii.  16.  (T.  C.  R.  137.) 
Again  Swedenborg  writes  to  Dr.  Beyer,  July  2, — 
"  Reverend  Doctor, —  Captain  Sjoberg  informed  me  that  he 
was  commissioned  by  Mr.  Hammarberg  to  purchase  some 
sets  of  the  works  written  by  me,  namely,  four  of  each,  and 
among  them  also  the  last  book  which  appeared  a  few  days 
ago.  On  account  of  the  strict  prohibition  the  captain  did 
not  dare  to  purchase  more  than  one  copy  of  each ;  besides 
this  I  presented  him  with  a  copy  of  the  last  work  published. 
Perhaps  Mr.  Hammarberg  may  know  of  some  way  by  which 
he  could  receive  another  copy  if  it  were  sent  afterwards.  In 
a  few  days  I  will  send  to  Stockholm  by  the  skipper  Casper 
Nyberg  two  copies  of  the  work  just  published,  entitled  Vera 
Religio  Christiana;  one  for  Bishop  Menander  and  the  other 
for  Bishop  Serenius ;  and  among  other  things  I  will  give 
them  to  understand  that,  as  soon  as  the  Diet  is  properly 
organized,  I  shall  tender  a  formal  complaint  of  the  course 
of  proceeding  of  the  Privy  Council  in  the  Gottenburg  mat- 
ter, in  respect  to  you  and  myself;  from  which  I  hope  a 
favorable  result.  .  .  .  With  my  kindest  regards  to  Dr.  Rosen 
I  remain,  with  all  friendship  and  affection, 

"Your  most  obedient  servant  and  friend, 

"  EMANUEL  SWEDENBORG." 

Swedenborg   did   not  fulfil  his  intention  of  repairing  to 
Sweden  and  appealing  to  the  Diet  of  1772,  perhaps  on  ac- 


OETINGER. 


367 


count  of  the  infirmities  that  grew  upon  him,  but  accepted 
the  invitation  of  his  English  friends  and  spent  his  few  re- 
maining months  in  London,  though  not  at  their  expense. 

Dr.  Beyer  and  Dr.  Rose'n  maintained  their  position  ably 
and  without  wavering.  The  result  was  that  they  were  allowed 
to  retain  their  offices  at  Gottenburg,  but  were  prohibited  from 
teaching  theological  matters,  because  of  their  "erroneous 
doctrinal  opinions." 

Meanwhile  the  distinguished  and  enlightened,  but  some- 
what one-sided  prelate,  Oetinger,1  who  was  in  a  measure 
friendly  to  Swedenborg,  was  bringing  him  into  notice  and 
calling  down  denunciation  on  the  heads  of  both.  Singularly 
Oetinger  was  deeply  affected  by  Swedenborg's  account  of 
things  heard  and  seen  in  the  spiritual  world,  and  entertained 
no  doubt  of  their  reality.  He  translated  and  published  with 
his  own  writings  the  intermediate  chapters  of  the  Arcana 
Ccelestia.  But  he  could  not  accept  the  explanations  of  Scrip- 
ture, because  he  was  unwilling  to  give  up  his  old  belief  in  the 
literal,  material  fulfilment  of  the  prophecies.  His  books  that 
contained  portions  of  Swedenborg's  were  condemned  and 
confiscated  by  the  clerical  authorities,  and  again  and  again 
with  determined  will  he  petitioned  for  their  release,  though 
without  success.  His  vigorous  spirit  well  appears  in  the 
preface  to  his  translation  from  the  "Arcana"  :  — 

"  I  herewith  present  to  the  examination  of  the  reader  something 
rare,  which  God  has  given  us  to  know  in  the  present  times.  It  is 

1  Kiirtz  calls  Oetinger  "the  magus  of  the  south,"  " deeply  learned  in  the 
Scriptures,"  "  the  first  representative  of  a  theology  of  the  future,  which,  it  is 
true,  might  need  thorough  purifying  and  close  sifting,  but  yet  might  be  adapted 
to  represent,  in  its  fundamental  idea,  the  basis  for  the  true  reconciliation  of 
Idealism  and  Realism."  Dorner  says  Oetinger's  "  view  of  heaven,  as  a  world 
of  realities,  could  not  suffer  him  to  conceive  of  God  as  merely  an  infinite, 
unfathomable  Being,  all  will  and  reason.  It  obliged  him  to  regard  Him  as  the 
living  centre,  who,while  He  governs  the  universe,  is  at  the  same  time  enthroned 
in  a  glory  and  happiness  to  which  He  is,  through  Christ,  raising  the  human 
race.  Hence  he  could  not  accommodate  himself  to  the  thought  that  the  rela- 
tion of  God  to  the  world  was  that  of  a  dead  law,  nor  confine  His  intercourse 
with  man  to  the  judicial  functions  of  commanding,  acquitting,  and  condemn- 
ing."— History  of  Protestant  Theology,  234. 


368  OPPOSITION. 

profitable  to  compare  unusual  things  with  those  to  which  we  are  accus- 
tomed ;  but  in  doing  so  it  is  necessary  sometimes  to  keep  back  our 
judgment,  until  we  are  able  to  take  in  the  whole  matter.  The  infidelity 
which  is  rife  now  in  the  world  has  induced  God  to  make  use  of  a  cele- 
brated philosopher  in  order  to  communicate  to  us  heavenly  informa- 
tion. Mathematics  have  checked  the  imagination  of  this  philosopher; 
wherefore  it  will  not  do  to  say  that  he  reports  mere  imaginations. 
Experimental  facts  are  not  imaginations.  These  experiences  are  due 
to  the  influx  of  heavenly  intelligences  by  the  command  of  the  Lord. 
Should  any  one  say,  '  We  have  Moses  and  the  Prophets/  he  may 
read  what  follows  or  not,  just  as  he  pleases.  Still,  a  person  anxious  to 
improve  himself  ought  not  to  forego  any  opportunity  by  which  he  may 
become  acquainted  with  new  light  offered  to  him  by  truth.  Sweden- 
borg,  a  distinguished  Assessor  of  the  College  of  Mines  in  Sweden, 
wrote  a  large  work  in  folio,  which  is  most  costly  [Opera  Philosophical 
This  I  call  Earthly  Philosophy  in  contradistinction  to  the  following, 
which  is  of  a  heavenly  origin,  and  which  he  has  published  in  thirteen 
works  that  are  still  more  valuable.  Should  you  find  therein  proposi- 
tions which  appear  objectionable,  remember  the  twelve  Ephesians  in 
the  Acts,  xix.  21,  who  'had  not  so  much  as  heard  whether  there  be  any 
Holy  Ghost,'  and  nevertheless  were  thought  worthy  at  once  to  receive 
the  Holy  Spirit,  notwithstanding  they  were  ignorant  of  one  of  the  chief 
grounds  of  faith,  and  opposed  to  the  Scripture.  Does  not  Swedenborg 
place  the  Scripture  higher  than  any  one  else  ?  and  does  he  not  wish  to 
have  all  experiences  judged  thereby  ?  Is  not  all  he  says  well  connec- 
ted ?  And  does  he  not  appeal  to  many  witnesses  ?  " 

Referring  to  the  first  volume  of  the  same  philosophical 
work,  in  a  letter  of  defence  addressed  to  the  Duke  of  Wiir- 
temberg,  Oetinger  says,  "Thirty  years  previously  I  had  studied 
Swedenborg's  Principia  Rerum  Naturalium  in  folio,  which  I 
preferred  much  to  Wolff's  philosophy,  on  account  of  its  lead- 
ing to  the  Sacred  Scripture.  It  is  wonderful  how  a  philoso- 
pher, who  was  accustomed  to  think  according  to  the  rules  of 
mechanics,  should  have  become  a  prophet." 

From  Swedenborg  himself  Oetinger  received  the  following 
reply  to  one  of  his  queries  :  — 

"Why  from  being  a  philosopher  I  have  been  chosen? 
Answer :  The  cause  of  this  has  been,  that  the  spiritual  things 
which  are  being  revealed  at  the  present  day  may  be  taught 
and  understood  naturally  and  rationally :  for  spiritual  truths 


LETTER  TO  OETINGER.  369 

have  a  correspondence  with  natural  truths,  because  in  these 
they  terminate,  and  upon  these  they  rest.  That  there  is  a 
correspondence  of  all  spiritual  things  with  all  things  of  man, 
as  well  as  with  all  things  of  the  earth,  may  be  seen  in  the 
work  on  Heaven  and  Hell.  For  this  reason  I  was  introduced 
by  the  Lord  first  into  the  natural  sciences,  and  thus  prepared  ; 
and  indeed  from  the  year  1710  to  1744,  when  heaven  was 
opened  to  me.  Every  one  also  is  led  by  means  of  natural 
things  to  spiritual  things  :  for  man  is  born  natural ;  by  edu- 
cation he  is  moral,  and  afterwards  by  regeneration  from  the 
Lord  he  becomes  spiritual.  The  Lord  has  granted  to  me 
besides  to  love  truths  in  a  spiritual  manner,  that  is,  to  love 
them,  not  for  the  sake  of  honor,  nor  for  the  sake  of  gain,  but 
for  the  sake  of  the  truths  themselves  ;  for  he  who  loves  truths 
for  the  sake  of  the  truth,  sees  them  from  the  Lord,  because 
the  Lord  is  the  Way  and  the  Truth  (John  xiv.  6)  ;  but  he 
who  loves  them  for  the  sake  of  honor  or  gain,  sees  them  from 
himself;  and  seeing  from  oneself  is  equivalent  to  seeing  fal- 
sities. Falsities  that  have  been  confirmed  close  the  Church, 
wherefore  truths  rationally  understood  have  to  open  it.  How 
else  can  spiritual  things  which  transcend  the  understanding 
be  understood,  acknowledged,  and  received?  The  dogma 
that  has  been  handed  down  by  the  Papists,  and  accepted  by 
the  Protestants,  namely,  that  the  understanding  is  to  be  held 
in  bondage  under  obedience  to  faith,  has  a  second  time 
closed  the  Church,  and  what  else  is  to  open  it  again,  except 
an  understanding  enlightened  by  the  Lord?  " 

Surely  it  is  little  matter  of  surprise  that  Papist  and  Protes- 
tant leaders,  interested  to  the  last  degree  in  maintaining  this 
bondage  of  reason,  as  the  means  of  securing  their  own 
supremacy,  should  resist  with  despairing  violence  the  break- 
ing of  chains  and  bursting  of  doors  that  attended  the  publi- 
cation of  the  Doctrines  of  the  New  Church.  But  what  can 
better  attest  the  breaking  of  these  bonds,  and  the  light  of  the 
New  Heaven  in  its  broad  descent  from  that  time,  than  the 

astonishment  with  which  we  now  look  back  at  the  slavery 

24 


3/O  OPPOSITION. 

of  reason  to  blind  faith,  in  the  age  that  then  began  to  see 
its  end? 

Much  sensible  matter  was  written  by  Oetinger,  Beyer,  and 
Rose'n,  in  defence  of  Swedenborg,  for  which  we  have  not 
space.  We  will  content  ourselves  with  copying  the  beginning 
of  a  letter  from  Dr.  Rosen  to  a  Senator  and  Councillor  :  — 

"Gracious  Sir, —  As  Swedenborgianism  and  I  have  fallen  into  the 
hands  of  your  Excellency,  I  will  not  distress  myself  about  a  fortunate 
issue  of  our  cause  and  my  acquittal.  The  exigency  of  the  case,  never- 
theless, requires  that,  with  your  gracious  leave,  I  should  explain  my- 
self at  greater  length.  .  .  . 

"  Gracious  Sir,  the  essence  of  the  purity  of  our  doctrine  is  its  ac- 
cordance with  Scripture ;  and  the  laws  of  Sweden,  especially  a  law 
dating  from  1766,  indicate  this.  If  all  Christians  who  are  related  to 
us  by  faith  appeal  to  God's  Word,  though  some  do  violence  to  it  and 
strain  it,  nevertheless  if  we  examine  this  matter  justly  and,  as  it  were, 
standing  in  God's  presence,  the  question  resolves  itself  into  this, — 
Who  has  really  the  law  and  the  Word  on  his  side  ?  He  who  has  is 
orthodox,  and  he  alone.  A  great  advance  in  linguistics  and  an  ac- 
cumulation of  inestimable  philological  and  philosophical  discoveries, 
made  in  recent  times,  give  me  a  just  hope  that  an  amendment  in  our 
faith  and  life,  which  is  as  possible  as  it  is  necessary,  will  eventually 
take  place.  And  now  it  happens  that  a  wonderful  man,  who  gives 
evidence  of  a  most  unusual  learning  in  natural  and  spiritual  things, 
'declares  that  he  has  been  sent  by  the  Lord  for  such  a  purpose ;  and, 
on  being  tisked  for  his  credentials,  he  solves  all  involved  theological 
problems,  strikes  down  naturalism  and  superstition,  with  the  same 
weapons  exposes  the  nakedness  of  the  learned,  and  subjects  himself 
to  the  good  and  evil  report  of  the  Lord's  Apostles;  he  manifests 
the  greatest  possible  veneration  for  Scripture,  he  worships  God,  and 
urges  man  to  sanctification :  in  short,  he  seeks  to  promote  the  honor  of 
the  Most  High.  It  is  excusable  if,  for  such  a  man,  whose  'eyes  are 
open'  (Num.  xxiv.  4),  and  '  in  whom  is  undoubtedly  the  spirit  of  the 
holy  gods' (Dan.  v.  ii ), —  I  should  conceive  some  veneration.  Mere 
curiosity,  however,  has  not  led  me  to  his  doctrines,  but  I  have  been 
drawn  to  them  by  their  consistency  with  God's  Word." 

Dr.  Rose"  n  survived  Swedenborg  but  a  year  and  a  half.  Dr. 
Beyer  continued  to  labor  on  his  Indexes  till  they  were  com- 
pleted, in  1779  ;  and  soon  after  he  had  sent  the  last  sheet  of 
manuscript  to  Amsterdam,  he  too  went  to  join  his  friend  and 
teacher  in  the  world  of  their  affections. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

FRIENDLY  ACCOUNTS   OF   SWEDENBORG. 

WE  have  shown  the  esteem  for  Swedenborg  of  two  of  the 
men  named  by  Kurtz  as  the  leading  religious  spirits  of  this 
period  in  Germany, — Jung-Stilling  and  Oetinger.  That  of 
a  third,  Lavater,  is  sufficiently  shown  in  two  letters  to  Swe- 
denborg, the  second  and  shorter  of  which  we  will  copy  :  — 

"Most  noble,  venerable,  and  beloved  in  Christ  our  Lord:  —  I  have 
taken  the  liberty  of  writing  to  you  a  second  time,  as  it  is  likely  you 
may  not  have  received  my  other  letter,  on  account  of  your  travels  ;  but 
I  have  at  last  learned  by  what  means  this  will  probably  reach  you. 

"  I  revere  the  wonderful  gifts  you  have  received  from  God.  I  revere 
the  wisdom  which  shines  forth  from  your  writings,  and  therefore  cannot 
but  seek  the  friendship  of  so  great  and  excellent  a  man  now  living.  If 
what  is  reported  be  true,  God  will  show  you  how  much  I  seek  to  con- 
verse with  you  in  the  simplicity  of  my  mind.  I  am  a  young  man,  not 
yet  thirty  years  old,  a  minister  of  the  Gospel ;  I  am  and  shall  remain 
employed  in  the  cause' of  Christ  as  long  as  I  live.  .1  have  written 
something  on  the  happiness  of  the  future  life.  Oh,  if  I  could  exchange 
letters  with  you  on  this  subject,  or  rather  converse  1 

"  I  add  some  writing  :  you  shall  know  my  soul. 

"  One  thing  I  beg  of  you,  Divinely  inspired  man  !  I  beseech  you  by 
the  Lord  not  to  refuse  me ! 

"In  the  month  of  March,  1768,  died  Felix  Hess,  my  best  friend,  a 
youth  of  ZUrich,  twenty-four  years  of  age,  an  upright  man,  of  a  noble 
mind,  striving  after  a  Christian  spirit,  but  not  yet  clothed  with  Christ. 
Tell  me,  I  pray,  what  he  is  doing.  Paint  to  me  his  figure,  state,  etc.,  in 
such  words  that  I  may  know  that  God's  truth  is  in  you.  .  .  . 

"  I  am  your  brother  in  Christ.  Answer  very  soon  a  sincere  brother ; 
and  answer  the  letter  I  have  sent  in  such  a  manner  that  /  may  see 
what  I  am  believing  on  the  testimony  of  others. 

"  Christ  be  with  us,  to  whom  we  belong,  living  or  dead. 

"JOHN  CASPER  LAVATER, 

"  ZURICH  IN  SWITZERLAND,         "Minister  at  the  Orphan  Asylum. 
"Sept.  24,  1769." 


372 


FRIENDLY   ACCOUNTS. 


We  do  not  know  what  reply  this  letter  received,  but  we 
have  incidental  knowledge  of  Swedenborg's  purpose  two  years 
later  of  going  to  Switzerland  to  visit  his  correspondent ;  and 
the  influence  of  his  own  writings  on  Lavater's  views  is  appar- 
ent in  the  latter's  "  Fifteen  Letters  on  the  Scriptural  Doctrine 
of  our  Reconciliation  with  God  through  Christ,"  and  in  his 
dissertations  on  "Jesus  Christ  ever  the  same,  not  limited  by 
Time  and  Space."  Indeed,  an  attack  on  Lavater's  views  and 
Swedenborg's  together  was  made  by  a  professor  of  theology, 
Semler.  Of  his  preaching,  Steffens's  autobiography,  quoted 
by  Hagenbach  (i.  500),  gives  this  charming  account :  — 

"  '  He  [Lavater]  preached  in  the  Reformed  Church,  and  I  both  saw 
and  heard  him.  His  figure,  as  it  still  appears  before  me,  was  highly 
interesting.  The  tall,  slender  man  slightly  stooped  in  walking ;  his 
physiognomy  was  extremely  intellectual,  and  his  sharp  features  gave 
testimony  of  an  excited  past  and  of  inner  struggles ;  and  his  eyes 
flashed  fervor,  brilliance,  and  clearness.  .  .  .  The  small  Reformed 
Church  was  crowded,  and  a  solemn  quiet  pervaded  the  assembly.  .  .  . 
It  is  very  remarkable  how  this  sermon  won  me  and  held  me  spell- 
bound. He  not  only  expressed  the  confidence  of  faith,  but  also  the 
deep  and  overpowering  feelings  of  the  heart.  It  seemed  to  me  that  I 
was  hearing  for  the  first  time  the  voice  for  which  I  had  been  longing. 
His  sermon  treated  on  prayer.  That  inward  and  deeply  concealed, 
yet  pious  life  of  my  childhood,  .which  I  had  enjoyed  in  the  quiet  room 
of  my  mother,  and  which  profoundly  influenced  my  inmost  soul,  but 
could  only  be  gently  whispered  externally,  now  seemed  to  awaken  me, 
a  slumberer,  from  my  long  sleep,  as  with  a  voice  of  thunder.  With 
that  overpowering  truth  which  can  only  be  portrayed  by  one  who 
speaks  aloud  his  inward  experience,  he  described  those  outward  and 
inward  struggles  by  which  victory  can  only  be  won  through  prayer. 
His  language,  which  seemed  to  me  so  repulsive  at  the  beginning,  was 
now  more  beautiful,  clear,  and  inspiring, —  it  seemed  to  me  to  be  in 
possession  of  such  a  living  force  as  would  be  impossible  to  any 
other.' " 

Matthius  Claudius,  another  of  the  men  referred  to  by 
Kurtz,  a  poet  and  religious  writer,  had  no  personal  acquain- 
tance with  Swedenborg,  but  reflected  the  esteem  of  others. 

"  Now,"  he  says,  "  after  Swedenborg  had  made  himself  acquainted 
with  all  the  erudition  of  his  time,  and  after  the  greatest  honors  had 


FATHER  OBERLIN. 


373 


been  bestowed  upon  him  by  individuals  and  whole  societies,  he  began 
to  see  spirits.  ...  He  was  always  a  virtuous  man,  and  one  who  was 
interiorly  affected  with  the  beauty  and  majesty  of  the  visible  world.  .  .  . 
We  cannot  help  thinking  that  there  are  spirits,  and  Swedenborg  often 
affirmed  in  his  lifetime  with  great  earnestness,  and  even  on  his  death- 
bed .  .  .  that  he  was  able  to  see  spirits,  and  had  seen  them.  Now  as 
the  new  world  really  existed  long  before  Columbus  found  it  out, 
though  we  in  Europe  were  ignorant  of  its  existence,  so  perhaps  there 
may  be  a  means  to  see  spirits.  ...  In  the  opinion  of  many  wise 
people  there  lies  a  great  deal  of  truth  hidden  perhaps  close  by  us." 

Father  Oberlin,  of  Ban-de-la-Roche,  yet  another  of  "the 
most  brilliant  and  best-known  names  of  the  faithful  sons  of 
the  Church,"  and  held  in  reverence  everywhere  for  his  love 
and  piety,  was  asked  by  an  English  visitor,  the  Rev.  J.  H. 
Smithson,  whether  he  had  read  any  of  the  works  of  Sweden- 
borg. 

"  He  immediately  reached  a  book,  and  clapping  his  hand  upon  it,  ex- 
pressive of  great  satisfaction,  told  me  that  he  had  had  this  treasure  a 
great  many  years  in  his  library,  and  that  he  knew  from  his  own  expe- 
rience that  everything  related  in  it  was  true.  This  treasure  was  Swe- 
denborg's  work  on  Heaven  and  Hell"  In  answer  to  inquiry  how  he 
came  to  this  conviction,  "  he  replied  that  when  he  first  came  to  reside  as 
pastor  among  the  inhabitants  of  Steinthal,  they  had  many  superstitious 
notions  respecting  the  proximity  of  the  spiritual  world,  and  of  the  ap- 
pearance of  various  objects  and  phenomena  in  that  world  which,  from 
time  to  time,  were  seen  by  some  of  the  people  belonging  to  his  flock. 
For  instance,  it  was  not  unusual  for  a  person  who  had  died  to  appear 
to  some  individual  in  the  valley.  This  gift  of  second  sight,  or  the 
opening  of  the  spiritual  sight,  to  see  objects  in  a  spiritual  state  of 
existence,  was,  however,  confined  to  a  few  persons,  and  continued  but 
a  short  period  and  at  different  intervals  of  time.  The  report  of  every 
new  occurrence  of  this  kind  was  brought  to  Oberlin,  who  at  length 
became  so  much  annoyed  that  he  was  resolved  to  put  down  this  spe- 
cies of  superstition,  as  he  called  it,  from  the  pulpit,  and  exerted  himself 
for  a  considerable  time  to  this  end,  but  with  little  or  no  desirable 
effect.  Cases  became  more  numerous,  and  the  circumstances  so  strik- 
ing as  even  to  stagger  the  scepticism  of  Oberlin  himself.  About  this 
time,  being  on  a  visit  to  Strasburg,  he  met  with  the  work  on  Heaven 
and  Hell,  which  a  friend  [probably  Jung-Stilling]  recommended  him 
to  peruse.  This  work,  as  he  informed  me,  gave  him  a  full  and  satis- 
factory explanation  of  the  extraordinary  cases  occurring  in  his  valley, 
and  which  he  himself  was  at  length,  from  evidences  which  could  not 


3/4  FRIENDLY  ACCOUNTS. 

be  doubted,  constrained  to  admit.  The  satisfactory  solution  of  these 
extraordinary  cases  afforded  great  pleasure  to  his  mind,  and  he  read 
the  'treasure,'  as  he  called  it,  very  attentively,  and  with  increasing 
delight.  He  no  longer  doubted  the  nearness  of  the  spiritual  world ; 
yea,  he  believed  that  man,  by  virtue  of  his  better  part, —  his  immortal 
mind, —  is  already  an  inhabitant  of  the  spiritual  world,  in  which,  after 
the  death  of  the  material  body,  he  is  to  continue  his  existence  forever. 
He  plainly  saw  from  the  correspondent  relation  existing  between  the 
two  worlds,  that  when  it  pleased  the  Lord,  man  might  easily  be  placed, 
by  opening  his  spiritual  senses,  in  open  communication  with  the  world 
of  spirits.  This,  he  observed,  was  frequently  the  case  with  the  seers 
mentioned  in  the  Old  Testament ;  and  why  might  it  not  be  so  now,  if 
the  Divine  Providence  saw  fit,  in  order  to  instruct  mankind  more  fully 
in  respect  to  their  relation  to  a  spiritual  state  of  existence,  and  to  re- 
plenish their  minds  with  more  accurate  and  copious  views  respecting 
heaven,  the  final  home  of  the  good,  and  hell,  the  final  abode  of  the 
wicked?  .  .  .  From  seeing,  as  explained  by  Swedenborg,  that  the 
Lord's  kingdom  is  a  kingdom  of  uses,  Oberlin  resolved  all  the  exer- 
tions and  operations  of  his  life  into  one  element  —  USE.  He  taught 
his  people  that  to  be  useful,  and  to  shun  all  evil  as  sin  against  the 
Lord,  in  being  useful,  is  the  truly  heavenly  life."  * 

We  cannot  hear  too  much  about  the  lives  of  such  good 
men.  Let  us  linger  with  Hagenbach  on  that  of  Father 
Oberlin:  — 

"  In  order  to  conclude  the  present  lecture  with  a  living,  personal 
impression,  we  will  leave  the  intricacies  of  the  Hegelian  philosophy 
where  we  commenced  it,  and  catch  a  breath  of  the  pure  fresh  air.  We 
pass  into  a  solitary  vale,  wild  by  nature  but  improved  by  the  hands  of 
man.  We  see  a  plain  figure,  one  of  God's  worthiest  priests.  If  it 
would  not  be  unprotestant,  we  would  call  him,  as  a  certain  Protestant 
writer,  Hase,  has  done,  '  a  saint  of  his  Church.'  We  mean  Pastor 
Oberlin,  of  the  Steinthal.  He  is  well  known  to  you  all,  and  therefore 
I  will  only  remind  you  of  him  by  recalling  his  image.  From  the  larger 
and  smaller  accounts  of  his  life  by  Stoeber  and  Schubert,  we  learn 
the  following  facts  :  The  son  of  a  Strasburg  scholar,  he  was  born  in 
the  year  1740,  and  received  a  careful  Christian  training.  With  the 
firm  confidence  of  a  disciple  and  apostle  of  Christ,  he  became  pastor 
of  Waldbach  in  the  year  1767.  He  trod  in  the  footsteps  of  a  worthy 
predecessor,  and  communed  with  the  noble  friends  of  humanity  whom 
he  found  in  that  desolate  place,  which,  though  he  did  not  convert  into 
a  paradise,  he  did  transform  into  a  friendly  dwelling-place  of  indus- 
1  Intellectual  Repository,  April,  1840. 


FATHER  OBERLIN.  375 

trious  men,  in  whose  hearts  and  families  he  supplanted  roughness  of 
sentiment  and  indolent  habits  by  steady  and  active  Christianity. 

"  When  we  behold  this  apostolic  man  become  a  pattern  of  self- 
denial,  self-conquest,  and  trust  in  God,  of  a  mild  and  peaceful  heroism, 
yet  always  subjecting  himself  to  the  laws  of  God  and  man ;  when  we 
meet  him,  in  the  storms  of  revolution,  preserving  with  prudence  and 
determination,  amid  fanatics  and  revolutionists,  a  Johannean  spirit 
which  compelled  their  respect ;  when  we  find  him,  finally,  in  his  ex- 
treme old  age  active  in  the  service  of  his  Master,  until  called  to 
heaven  in  the  year  1825, —  we  cannot  longer  doubt  the  power  of  the 
religious  spirit  which,  in  the  midst  of  devastating  forces,  bears  an 
eloquent  witness  for  the  Church  in  which  and  for  which  this  power 
was  active.  It  is  very  apparent  in  Oberlin's  case  how  such  demands  of 
time  as  were  expressed  in  philanthropinism  were  first  safely  and  per- 
manently realized  in  practical  Christianity.  How  often  was  it  declared 
at  the  time  when  Sebaldus  Nothanker  was  written,  and  very  much 
was  said  of  the  usefulness  of  the  ministerial  office,  that  the  pastor 
must  also  understand  agriculture,  and  aid  his  peasants  in  a  secular 
way,  if  he  would  ennoble  them  morally,  and  win  them  to  the  reception 
of  the  Divine  truth  ?  But  these  ideas  of  the  preacher  remained  on 
philanthropinic  paper,  and  became  only  waste  paper,  without  being 
transformed  into  flesh  and  blood. 

"  Oberlin  did  the  one  without  leaving  the  other  undone.  He  gave 
heavenly  and  earthly  instruction  at  the  same  time,  and  united  the  two. 
The  '  pray  and  labor '  was  not  something  disjointed,  but  united,  and 
therefore  blessed.  The  same  was  the  case  with  ecclesiastical  union. 
Not  only  did  the  difference  between  the  Reformed  and  the  Lutheran 
Confessions  vanish  here  completely,  but  even  Catholics  attended 
Oberlin's  preaching,  and  he  himself  declared  to  a  Catholic  nobleman, 
that  to  him  every  Christian  was  welcome  who  believed  in  our  natural 
depravity  and  in  the  necessity  of  our  return  to  God.  It  was  on  the 
positive  ground  of  this  faith,  and  not  on  the  negative  basis  of  indiffer- 
ence, that  he  believed  in  union,  and  therefore  even  Catholic  Christians 
could  go  to  his  grave  and  remember  him  in  love.  Oberlin's  life 
reminds  us  sometimes  of  Lavatet  and  Stilling,  for  we  find  in  it  re- 
markable, wonderful,  and  peculiar  elements."  1 

Carl  Robsahm,  treasurer  of  the  bank  at  Stockholm,  was 
intimate  with  Swedenborg  during  his  later  years,  and  left 
memoirs  of  his  friend  in  Swedish,  which  have  been  printed  in 
German  and  from  that  in  an  English  translation.  In  the 
Rev.  R.  L.  Tafel's  Documents,  a  new  English  translation  is 

1  History  of  the  Church  in  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries,  ii.  382. 


376  FRIENDLY  ACCOUNTS. 

given  from  the  Swedish  original,  and  from  this  we  adopt  such 
matters  of  interest  as  we  have  not  already  given  from  other 
sources : — 

" Swedenborg's  property  [in  Stockholm]  was  about  a 
stone's  cast  in  length  and  in  breadth.  The  rooms  of  his 
dwelling-house  were  small  and  plain ;  but  were  comfortable 
for  him,  though  scarcely  for  any  one  else.  Although  he  was 
a  learned  man,  no  books  were  ever  seen  in  his  room,  except 
his  Hebrew  and  Greek  Bible,  and  his  manuscript  indexes  to 
his  own  works,  by  which,  in  making  quotations,  he  was  saved 
the  trouble  of  examining  all  that  he  had  previously  written  or 
printed. 

"  Swedenborg  worked  without  much  regard  to  the  distinc- 
tion of  day  and  night,  having  no  fixed  time  for  labor  or  rest. 
'When  I  am  sleepy,'  he  said,  'I  go  to  bed.'  All  the  atten- 
dance he  required  from  his  servant,  his  gardener's  wife, 
consisted  in  her  making  his  bed  and  placing  a  large  jug  of 
water  in  his  anteroom,  his  housekeeping  being  so  arranged 
that  he  could  make  his  own  coffee  in  his  study;  and  this 
coffee  he  drank  in  great  abundance,  both  day  and  night,  and 
with  a  great  deal  of  sugar.  When  not  invited  out,  his  dinner 
consisted  of  nothing  but  a  roll  soaked  in  boiled  milk ;  and 
this  was  his  meal  always  when  he  dined  at  home.  He  never 
at  that  time  used  wine  or  strong  drink,  nor  did  he  eat  any- 
thing in  the  evening ;  but  in  company  he  would  eat  freely, 
and  indulge  moderately  in  a  social  glass. 

"The  fire  in  the  stove  of  his  study  was  never  allowed  to  go 
out,  from  autumn  through  the  whole  of  winter  until  spring ; 
for  as  he  always  needed  coffee,  and  as  he  always  made  it  him- 
self, without  milk  or  cream,  and  as  he  had  never  any  definite 
time  for  sleeping,  he  always  required  to  have  a  fire. 

"  His  sleeping-room  was  always  without  fire ;  and  when  he 
lay  down,  according  to  the  severity  of  the  winter,  he  covered 
fiimself  with  three  or  four  woollen  blankets.  But  I  remember 
one  winter  which  was  so  cold  that  he  was  obliged  to  move 
his  bed  into  his  study. 


CARL  ROBSAHM.  377 

"As  soon  as  he  awoke,  he  went  into  his  study,  where  he 
always  found  glowing  embers,  put  wood  on  the  burning  coals 
and  a  few  pieces  of  birch  bark,  which  for  convenience  he 
used  to  purchase  in  bundles,  so  as  to  be  able  to  make  a  fire 
quickly ;  and  then  he  sat  down  to  write. 

"In  his  drawing-room  was  the  marble  table  which  he 
afterwards  presented  to  the  Royal  College  of  Mines;  this 
room  was  neat  and  genteel,  but  plain. 

"His  dress  in  winter  consisted  of  a  fur-coat  of  reindeer 
skin,  and  in  summer  of  a  dressing-gown ;  both  well  worn,  as 
became  a  philosopher's  wardrobe.  His  wearing  apparel  was 
simple,  but  neat.  Still,  it  happened  sometimes  that  when  he 
prepared  to  go  out,  and  his  people  did  not  call  attention  to  it, 
something  would  be  forgotten  or  neglected  in  his  dress ;  so 
that,  for  instance,  he  would  put  one  buckle  of  gems  and 
another  of  silver  in  his  shoes, —  an  instance  of  which  absence 
of  mind  I  myself  saw  at  my  father's  house,  where  he  was 
invited  to  dine,  and  the  occurrence  greatly  amused  several 
young  girls,  who  took  occasion  to  laugh  at  the  old  gentleman. 

"  It  was  difficult  for  him  to  talk  quickly,  for  he  then  stam- 
mered, especially  when  he  was  obliged  to  talk  in  a  foreign 
tongue.  Of  foreign  languages,  in  addition  to  the  learned 
languages,  he  understood  well  French,  English,  Dutch,  Ger- 
man, and  Italian  ;  for  he  had  journeyed  several  times  in  these 
countries.  He  spoke  slowly ;  and  it  was  always  a  pleasure  to 
be  with  him  at  table,  for  whenever  Swedenborg  spoke,  all 
other  talk  was  hushed ;  and  the  slowness  with  which  he 
spoke  had  the  effect  of  restraining  the  frivolous  remarks  of 
the  curious  in  the  assembly.  At  first  he  used  to  talk  freely 
about  his  visions  and  his  explanations  of  Scripture  ;  but  when 
this  displeased  the  clergy,  and  they  pronounced  him  a  heretic 
or  a  downright  madman,  he  resolved  to  be  more  sparing  of 
his  communications  in  company,  or  at  all  events  to  be  more 
on  his  guard,  so  as  not  to  offer  an  opportunity  to  scoffers  of 
inveighing  against  what  they  could  not  understand  as  well 
as  himself. 


378  FRIENDLY  ACCOUNTS. 

"I  once  addressed  the  pastor  of  our  parish,  an  old  and 
esteemed  clergyman,  and  asked  him  what  I  ought  to  think  of 
Swedenborg's  visions  and  of  his  explanations  of  the  Bible. 
This  honorable  man  answered  me  with  the  spirit  of  true 
tolerance  :  'Let  God  be  the  judge  how  these  things  are  in 
reality  !  But  I  cannot  pass  the  same  judgment  upon  him 
that  many  others  do ;  I  have  spoken  with  him  myself,  and  I 
have  found  in  company  where  he  was  with  me  that  he  is  a 
pious  and  good  man.' 

"The  chaplain  of  the  Imperial  Russian  Legation,  Oronos- 
kow,  who  was  in  Stockholm  during  the  time  of  the  ambassa- 
dor, Count  Ostermann,  was  a  monk  of  the  Alexander-Newsky 
order,  and  led  an  orderly  and  pious  life, —  quite  differently 
from  the  other  Russian  priests  who  had  been  here  before 
him.  He  became  acquainted  with  me,  and  I  lent  him  Swe- 
denborg's books,  which  he  said  he  read  with  the  greatest 
delight.  He  desired  to  see  Swedenborg,  and  to  talk  with 
this  remarkable  man.  I  complied  with  his  desire,  and  invited 
Swedenborg  and  him  to  dinner,  in  company  with  the  late 
President  of  the  Royal  College  of  Commerce,  Mr.  von  Carle- 
son,  and  the  Councillor  of  Chancery,  Mr.  Berch,  together 
with  several  of  my  relatives.  During  dinner  the  chaplain 
asked  Swedenborg,  among  other  things,  whether  he  had  seen 
the  Empress  Elizabeth.  Swedenborg  answered :  '  I  have 
seen  her  often,  and  I  know  that  she  is  in  a  very  happy  state.' 
This  answer  brought  tears  of  joy  into  the  chaplain's  eyes,  who 
said  that  she  had  been  good  and  just.  'Yes,'  said  Sweden- 
borg, 'her  kind  feeling  for  her  people  was  made  known,  after 
her  death,  in  the  other  life  ;  for  there  it  was  shown  that  she 
never  went  into  council  without  praying  to  God  and  asking 
for  His  counsel  and  assistance,  in  order  that  she  might  govern 
well  her  country  and  her  people.'  This  gladdened  the  chap- 
lain so  much  that  he  expressed  his  joyful  surprise  by  silence 
and  tears.  .  .  . 

"When  he  [Swedenborg]  left  Sweden  for  the  last  time,  he 
came  of  his  own  accord  to  me  at  the  bank  on  the  day  he  was 


CARL  ROBSAHM. 


379 


to  leave,  and  gave  me  a  protest  against  any  condemnation  of 
his  writings  during  his  absence  ;  which  protest  was  based  on 
the  law  of  Sweden,  and  in  which  he  stated  that  the  House 
of  the  Clergy  was  not  the  only  judge  in  matters  of  religion, 
inasmuch  as  theology  belonged  also  to  the  other  Houses. 
On  this  occasion  I  asked  him  the  same  question  as  before, 
namely,  whether  I  should  ever  see  him  again.  His  answer 
was  tender  and  touching:  'Whether  I  shall  come  again, 
that,'  said  he,  'I  do  not  yet  know;  but  of  this  I  can  assure 
you,  for  the  Lord  has  promised  to  me,  that  I  shall  not  die 
until  I  have  received  from  the  press  this  work,  the  Vera 
Christiana  Religio,  which  is  now  ready  to  be  printed,  and  for 
the  sake  of  which  I  now  undertake  this  journey ;  but  if  we 
do  not  meet  again  in  the  body,  we  shall  meet  in  the  presence 
of  the  Lord,  provided  we  live  in  this  world  according  to  His 
Will,  and  not  according  to  our  own.'  He  then  took  leave  of 
me  in  as  blithe  and  cheerful  a  frame  of  mind  as  if  he  had 
been  a  man  in  his  best  years ;  and  the  same  day  he  departed 
from  Sweden  for  the  last  time. 

"  I  asked  Swedenborg  once  whether  his  explanations  would 
be  received  in  Christendom.  'About  that,'  said  he,  'I  can 
say  nothing ;  but  I  suppose  that  in  their  proper  time  they  will 
be  received,  for  otherwise  the  Lord  would  not  have  disclosed 
what  has  heretofore  lain  concealed.' 

"He  was  never  ill,  except  when  temptations  came  over 
him,  but  he  was  frequently  troubled  with  toothache.  I  came 
to  him  once  on  such  an  occasion,  when  he  complained  of  a 
severe  toothache,  which  had  continued  for  several  days.  I 
recommended  a  common  remedy  for  soothing  the  pain ;  but 
he  answered  at  once  that  his  toothache  was  not  caused  by  a 
diseased  nerve,  but  by  the  influx  of  hell  from  hypocrites 
who  tempted  him,  and  who  by  correspondence  caused  this 
pain,  which,  he  said,  he  knew  would  soon  cease,  and  leave 
him. 

"  Respecting  his  temptations,  I  collected  information  from 
his  modest  servants,  the  old  gardener  and  his  wife,  who  told 


380 


FRIENDLY   ACCOUNTS. 


me  with  sympathizing  and  compassionate  words  that  Sweden- 
borg  often  spoke  aloud  in  his  room,  and  was  indignant  when 
evil  spirits  were  with  him.  .  This  they  could  hear  the  more 
distinctly,  because  their  room  was  near  his.  When  he  was 
asked  why  he  had  been  so  restless  during  the  night,  he  an- 
swered that  permission  had  been  given  to  evil  spirits  to  revile 
him,  and  that  he  spoke  to  and  was  indignant  with  them.  It 
often  happened  that  he  wept  bitterly,  and  called  out  with  a 
loud  voice,  and  prayed  to  the  Lord  that  He  would  not  leave 
him  in  the  temptation  which  had  come  upon  him.  The 
words  which  he  cried  out  were  these  :  '  O  Lord,  help  me  !  O 
Lord  my  God,  do  not  forsake  me  ! '  When  it  was  all  over, 
and  his  people  asked  him  about  the  cause  of  this  lamenta- 
tion, he  said  :  'God  be  praised  !  it  is  over  now.  You  must 
not  trouble  yourselves  about  me ;  for  whatever  happens  to 
me  is  permitted  by  the  Lord,  and  He  does  not  suffer  me  to 
be  tempted  more  than  He  sees  that  I  can  bear.' 

"  Once  it  was  very  remarkable  that,  after  such  a  lamentation, 
he  lay  down  and  did  not  rise  from  his  bed  for  several  days 
and  nights.  This  caused  his  people  much  uneasiness  ;  they 
talked  with  one  another,  and  supposed  that  he  had  died  from 
some  great  fright.  They  thought  of  having  the  door  forced 
open,  or  of  calling  in  his  intimate  friends.  At  last  the  man 
went  to  the  window,  and  to  his  great  joy  saw  that  his  master 
was  still  alive,  for  he  turned  himself  in  bed.  The  next  day 
he  rang  the  bell,  and  then  the  housekeeper  went  in  and  told 
him  of  her  own  and  her  husband's  uneasiness  at  his  con- 
dition ;  whereupon  he  said  with  a  cheerful  countenance  that 
he  was  doing  well,  and  that  he  did  not  need  anything.  She 
was  satisfied  with  this  answer,  for  neither  of  his  servants  dared 
to  interrogate  him,  since  they  had  the  same  opinion  of  him  as 
the  old  clergyman  in  my  parish ;  and  they  added  that  such  a 
wise  and  learned  man  would  never  distress  himself  with  work 
and  temptations,  if  he  did  not  know  whence  they  came." 

At  another  time  Robsahm  quotes  the  gardener's  wife  as 
saying,  — 


CARL   ROBSAHM.  381 

" '  I  can  see  when  he  has  spoken  with  heavenly  spirits,  for 
his  face  has  then  an  expression  of  gentleness,  cheerfulness, 
and  contentment  which  is  charming ;  but  after  he  has  con- 
versed with  evil  spirits,  he  looks  sad.'  "... 

"  During  the  session  of  the  Diet  he  was  interested  in  hear- 
ing news  from  the  House  of  Nobles,  of  which  he  was  a  mem- 
ber by  virtue  of  his  being  the  head  of  the  Swedenborg 
family.  He  wrote  several  memorials ;  but  when  he  saw  that 
party-spirit  and  self-interest  struggled  for  mastery,  he  went 
rarely  to  the  House  of  Nobles.  In  his  conversations  with  his 
friends  he  inveighed  against  the  spirit  of  dissension  among 
the  members  of  the  Diet;  and  in  acting  with  a  party  he 
was  never  a  party  man,  but  loved  truth  and  honesty  in  all 
he  did. 

"  I  asked  Swedenborg  whether  in  our  times  it  was  worth 
while  to  pay  attention  to  dreams ;  upon  which  he  answered 
that  the  Lord  no  longer  at  the  present  day  makes  revelations 
by  dreams ;  but  that,  nevertheless,  it  may  happen  that  one 
who  understands  correspondences  may  derive  advantage  from 
his  dreams, — just  as  a  person  that  is  awake  may  examine  his 
own  state  by  comparing  his  own  will  with  God's  command- 
ments. .  .  . 

"Whatever  Swedenborg  wrote  was  printed  from  his  own 
manuscript,  and  he  never  needed  the  help  of  an  amanuensis. 
His  handwriting  was  difficult  to  read  when  he  became  older ; 
but  he  said  to  me  :  '  The  Dutch  printers  read  my  handwrit- 
ing as  easily  as  the  English  do.'  There  is  one  thing  to  be 
observed  with  regard  to  most  of  his  spiritual  writings,  that 
the  proof-sheets  were  corrected  very  badly,  so  that  errata 
occur  very  often ;  the  cause  of  this,  he  said,  was  that  the 
printer  had  undertaken  the  proof-reading,  as  well  as  the 
printing. 

"As  Swedenborg  in  his  younger  days  did  not  think  of  the 
work  which  was  to  occupy  him  in  his  more  advanced  years, 
it  can  easily  be  imagined  that  in  his  time  he  was  not  only  a 
learned  man,  but  also  a  polished  gentleman;  for  a  man  of 


382  FRIENDLY  ACCOUNTS. 

such  extensive  learning,  who  by  his  books,  his  travels,  and 
his  knowledge  of  languages  had  acquired  distinction  both  at 
home  and  abroad,  could  not -fail  to  possess  the  manners  and 
everything  else  which,  in  those  so-called  serious  or  sober 
times,  caused  a  man  to  be  honored  and  made  him  agreeable 
in  society.  He  was  accordingly,  even  in  his  old  age,  cheer- 
ful, sprightly,  and  agreeable  in  company ;  yet  at  the  same 
time  his  countenance  presented  those  uncommon  features 
which  are  seen  only  in  men  of  great  genius." 

To  Robsahm's  inquiry  about  the  future  condition  of  those 
who  are  beheaded,  Swedenborg  answered, — 

"  'When  a  person  who  has  become  matured  in  wickedness 
is  removed  from  the  earth  by  the  law  and  the  axe,  although 
to  all  appearance  penitent,  he  still  remains  wicked  to  eter- 
nity, because  his  conversion  is  compulsory,  and  not  brought 
about  by  his  own  free-will,  as  required  by  God.  For  unless 
his  crimes  cast  him  into  prison,  where  he  sees  death  impend- 
ing, he  will  never  direct  his  thoughts  towards  God,  still  less 
his  heart,  hardened  by  habit.  And  such  a  one,  when  he 
finds  that  he  lives  as  before,  rushes  headlong  into  the  prac- 
tice of  all  those  evil  works  which  he  did  in  the  world,  and 
quickly  brings  himself  into  hell,  among  the  spirits  with  which 
he  had  been  associated  during  his  life  on  earth. 

" '  It  is  quite  different,  however,  with  those  who  are  exe- 
cuted on  account  of  some  crime  which  they  had  committed 
while  in  a  state  of  intoxication,  anger,  or  indignation,  or 
from  rashness,  without  any  real  intention  of  doing  it.  Such 
repent  bitterly  of  what  they  have  done,  and  if  they  do  not 
confirm  themselves  against  the  Lord's  commandments  dur- 
ing the  remainder  of  their  life,  they  become  after  their  death 
happy  and  blessed  spirits.' " 

Robsahm  continues, —  "  When  a  certain  clergyman  died  in 
Stockholm,  who  by  his  eloquence  and  his  pathetic  mode  of 
preaching  had  always  his  church  filled  with  hearers,  I  asked 
Swedenborg  whether  he  was  not  in  a  blessed  state.  'This 
man,'  said  he,  'went  straightway  to  hell,  among  the  societies 


CARL  ROBSAHM.  383 

of  hypocrites,  for  he  was  spiritually  minded  only  while  in  the 
pulpit ;  at  other  times  he  was  proud  of  his  talents  and  of  the 
success  he  had  in  the  world  :  he  was  an  inflated  man.  No, 
no,'  he  added;  ' there  no  dissimulation  and  no  deceitful  arts 
are  of  any  avail ;  for  all  these  disappear  with  death,  and  man 
involuntarily  shows  himself  to  be  either  good,  or  else  evil.' 

"  I  know  from  experience  that  there  is  not  a  single  word 
in  all  his  writings  which  leads  man  away  from  the  doing  of 
God's  will,  and  consequently  from  a  sincere  love  of  the 
neighbor;  there  is  contained,  however,  therein  an  entirely 
new  system,  which  is  opposed  to  the  principal  religions  pro- 
fessed by  men,  and  to  all  their  sects,  but  which  agrees  with 
all  of  them  in  this  particular,  that  blessedness  and  misery 
depend  upon  man's  life  in  this  world. 

"  All  this  Swedenborg  has  proved  abundantly  in  his  writ- 
ings, and  especially  has  he  written  against  the  dangerous 
doctrine  of  faith  alone ;  and  if  we  in  the  history  of  the 
Church  follow  those  who  have  been  instrumental  in  estab- 
lishing religions,  we  find  that  all  religions,  from  the  earliest 
to  the  latest  times,  have  been  instituted  by  well-meaning  per- 
sons, and  that  afterwards  they  have  been  subverted  partly  by 
the  ignorant  and  partly  by  cunning  and  crafty  prelates.  In 
conclusion,  however,  I  earnestly  desire  that  every  one  who 
reads  Swedenborg's  writings  should  do  so  with  caution,  and 
that  he  should  rather  remain  in  the  faith  he  received  in 
childhood,  and  which  was  often  impressed  on  him  with  se- 
verity, and  which  very  few  among  the  professors  of  faith  ex- 
amine, than  that  he  should  from  frivolity  or  from  blind  zeal 
revile  what  he  cannot  understand.  For  such  persons  read 
all  the  Prophets  and  the  book  of  Revelation,  where  they 
understand  nothing,  with  the  same  feeling  of  contempt  with 
which  they  read  Swedenborg's  system,  where,  however,  every- 
thing may  be  easily  understood  by  him  who  does  not  amuse 
himself  at  the  expense  of  truth,  and  who  does  not  reject 
everything  that  does  not  agree  with  his  own  preconceived 
notions." 


384  FRIENDLY  ACCOUNTS. 

Robsahm's  vivid  picture  of  his  friend  may  be  supple- 
mented by  the  slighter  sketches  of  some  of  Swedenborg's 
visitors,  with  less  intimate  acquaintance.  The  royal  libra- 
rian in  Stockholm,  Gjorwell,  called  on  him  in  1 764  to  re- 
quest, for  the  Royal  Library,  a  copy  of  the  works  he  had 
lately  published.  His  account  of  his  visit  to  Swedenborg 
is  simple,  and  pleasant  to  read :  — 

"  I  met  him  in  the  garden  adjoining  his  house  in  the 
Sodermalm  [southern  part  of  Stockholm],  where  he  was  en- 
gaged in  tending  his  plants,  attired  in  a  simple  garment.  The 
house  in  which  he  lives  is  of  wood ;  it  is  low,  and  looks  like 
a  garden-house  ;  its  windows  also  are  in  the  direction  of  the 
garden.  Without  knowing  me  or  the  nature  of  my  errand, 
he  said,  smiling  :  '  Perhaps  you  would  like  to  take  a  walk  in 
the  garden.'  I  answered  that  I  wished  to  have  the  honor  of 
calling  upon  him  and  asking  him,  on  behalf  of  the  Royal 
Library,  for  his  latest  works,  so  that  we  might  have  a  com- 
plete set,  especially  as  we  had  the  former  parts  he  had  left 
with  Wilde,  the  royal  secretary.  'Most  willingly,'  he  an- 
swered; 'besides,  I  had  intended  to  send  them  there,  as 
my  purpose  in  publishing  them  has  been  to  make  them 
known,  and  to  place  them  in  the  hands  of  intelligent  people.' 
I  thanked  him  for  his  kindness,  whereupon  he  showed  them 
to  me  and  took  a  walk  with  me  in  the  garden. 

"Although  he  is  an  old  man,  and  gray  hair  protruded  in 
every  direction  from  under  his  wig,  he  walked  briskly,  was 
fond  of  talking,  and  spoke  with  a  certain  cheerfulness.  His 
countenance  was,  indeed,  thin  and  meagre,  but  cheerful  and 
smiling.  By  and  by  he  began  of  his  own  accord  to  speak  of 
his  views  \  and  as  it  had  been  in  reality  my  second  purpose 
to  hear  them  with  my  own  ears,  I  listened  to  him  with  eager 
attention,  not  challenging  any  of  his  statements,  but  simply 
asking  him  questions,  as  if  for  my  own  enlightenment.  The 
substance  of  his  statements,  and  of  what  I  drew  from  him  by 
polite  questions,  consists  mainly  in  what  follows  :  — 

"  His  doctrinal  system  of  theology,  which  he  in  common 


GJORWELL'S  VISIT.  385 

with  other  Christians  bases  upon  our  common  revelation, 
the  Sacred  Scripture,  consists  principally  in  this  :  That  faith 
alone  is  a  pernicious  doctrine,  and  that  good  works  are  the 
proper  means  for  becoming  better  in  time,  and  for  leading  a 
blessed  life  in  eternity.  That  in  order  to  acquire  the  ability 
or  power  to  do  good  works,  prayer  to  the  Only  God  is  re- 
quired, and  that  man  also  must  labor  with  himself,  because 
God  does  not  use  compulsion  with  us,  nor  does  He  work 
any  miracles  for  our  conversion.  As  regards  the  rest,  man 
must  live  in  his  appointed  place,  acquiring  the  same  learning, 
and  leading  a  life  similar  to  that  of  other  honest  and  modest 
persons  who  live  temperately  and  piously.  About  the  atone- 
ment and  our  Saviour,  he  said  not  a  word.  It  is  a  pity  I  did 
not  ask  him  about  it.  But  his  thoughts  on  this  our  funda- 
mental article  of  faith  may  be  inferred  from  his  expression 
about  faith  alone." 

Readers  of  Swedenborg  will  recognize  this  as  a  simple, 
clear,  and  true  presentation  of  New-Church  doctrine,  as  far 
as  it  goes.  If  the  librarian  had  asked  about  our  Saviour,  he 
would  have  found  that  Swedenborg  was  thinking  of  Him  all 
the  time,  as  the  Only  God  in  His  Humanity ;  and  he  would 
have  learned  that  the  atonement  is  nothing  else  than  the 
glorification  of  this  Humanity,  and  our  redemption  thereby. 

Gjorwell  goes  on  to  say,  according  to  Swedenborg, — 

"That  God  revealed  Himself  to  him  in  May,  1744,  while 
he  was  in  London,  and  that  up  to  that  time  God  had  pre- 
pared him  by  a  thorough  knowledge  of  all  physical  and 
moral  powers  in  this  world  for  the  reception  of  the  new 
revelation ;  and  ever  since  that  time  he  has  constantly  and 
without  interruption  been  in  communion  with  God,  whom  he 
sees  before  his  eyes  like  a  sun.  He  speaks  with  angels  and 
the  departed,  and  knows  whatever  takes  place  in  the  other 
world,  as  well  in  heaven  as  in  hell ;  but  he  does  not  know  the 
future. 

"  His  mission  consists  in  communicating  this  new  light  to 
the  world;  and  whoever  is  willing  to  accept  it  receives  it. 

25 


386  FRIENDLY   ACCOUNTS. 

The  Lord  also  has  granted  him  this  revelation,  that  he  may 
make  it  known  to  others,  which  he  has  done  in  Latin,  the 
most  universal  language  in  the  world.  He  alone  has  re- 
ceived this  revelation,  which  also  is  a  most  particular  gift, 
which  he  makes  use  of  for  the  enlightenment  of  mankind. 
He  who  does  not  scorn  this  light,  and  who  does  not  resist 
this  revelation,  receives  it ;  and  this  revelation  is  living  truth. 
Its  object  really  is  that  a  New  Jerusalem  is  to  be  established 
among  men  ;  the  meaning  of  which  is  that  a  New  Church  is 
at  hand,  about  the  nature  of  which,  and  the  way  to  enter  it, 
his  writings  really  treat. 

"  About  all  this  he  spoke  with  a  perfect  conviction,  laying 
particular  stress  upon  these  words :  '  All  this  I  see  and 
know  without  becoming  the  subject  of  any  visions,  and  with- 
out being  a  fanatic ;  but  when  I  am  alone,  my  soul  is  as  it 
were  out  of  the  body,  and  in  the  other  world  :  in  all  respects 
I  am  in  a  visible  manner  there,  as  I  am  here.  But  when  I 
think  of  what  I  am  about  to  write,  and  while  I  am  in  the 
act  of  writing,  I  enjoy  a  perfect  inspiration  [sa  ager  jag  en 
full  komlig  inspiration]  ;  for  otherwise  it  would  be  my  own ; 
but  now  I  know  for  certain  that  what  I  write  is  the  living 
truth  of  God." 

That  the  word  "  inspiration  "  is  not  here  used  in  the  sense 
of  dictation,  or  as  used  in  reference  to  the  writers  of  the 
Scriptures,  but  in  the  sense  of  clear  enlightenment  of  the 
reason,  is  certain  from  Swedenborg's  Constant  teaching,  al- 
ready quoted,  that  this  is  the  only  kind  of  inspiration  grant- 
ed by  the  Lord  at  this  day. 

The  Rev.  Nicholas  Collin,  in  1820,  rector  of  the  quaint 
old  Swedish  Church  in  Philadelphia,  the  same  that  was  built 
in  1 700  under  Bishop  Swedberg's  charge,  lived,  when  a  young 
man,  three  years  in  Stockholm,  at  a  time  when  "  Sweden- 
borg  was  a  great  object  of  public  attention  in  that  metro- 
polis, and  his  extraordinary  character  was  a  frequent  topic  of 
discussion.  Not  seldom  he  appeared  in  public,  and  mixed  in 
private  circles ;  therefore  sufficient  opportunities  were  given 


COLON'S  VISIT.  387 

to  make  observations  on  him."  Mr.  Collin  was  not  a  fol- 
lower of  Swedenborg,  but  obligingly  gave  public  information 
about  him  on  several  occasions.  Of  a  visit  of  his  own,  he 
writes  as  follows  :  — 

"  In  the  summer  of  1 766  I  waited  on  him  at  his  house, 
introducing  myself,  with  an  apology  for  the  freedom  I  took, 
assuring  him  that  it  was  not  in  the  least  from  youthful 
presumption  (I  was  then  twenty),  but  from  a  strong  de- 
sire of  conversing  with  a  character  so  celebrated.  He  re- 
ceived me  very  kindly.  It  being  early  in  the  afternoon, 
delicate  coffee,  without  eatables,  was  served,  agreeably  to  the 
Swedish  custom  :  he  was  also,  like  pensive  men  in  general, 
fond  of  this  beverage.  We  conversed  for  nearly  three  hours, 
principally  on  the  nature  of  human  souls  and  their  states  in 
the  invisible  world,  discussing  the  principal  theories  of  psy- 
chology by  various  authors, —  among  them  the  celebrated 
Dr.  Wallerius,  late  professor  of  Natural  Theology  at  Upsal. 
He  asserted  positively,  as  he  often  does  in  his  works,  that  he 
had  intercourse  with  spirits  of  deceased  persons.  I  pre- 
sumed, therefore,  to  request  of  him,  as  a  great  favor,  to  pro- 
cure me  an  interview  with  my  brother,  who  had  departed 
this  life  a  few  months  before,  a  young  clergyman  officiating 
in  Stockholm  and  esteemed  for  his  devotion,  erudition,  and 
virtue.  He  answered  that,  God  having  for  wise  and  good 
purposes  separated  the  world  of  spirits  from  ours,  a  com- 
munication is  never  granted  without  cogent  reasons,  and 
asked  what  my  motives  were.  I  confessed  that  I  had  none 
besides  gratifying  brotherly  affection  and  an  ardent  wish  to 
explore  scenes  so  sublime  and  interesting  to  a  serious  mind. 
He  replied  that  my  motives  were  good,  but  not  sufficient ; 
that  if  any  important  spiritual  or  temporal  concern  of  mine 
had  been  the  case,  he  would  then  have  solicited  permission 
from  those  angels  who  regulate  such  matters." 

In  explanation  of  this  last  sentence,  which  was  called  in 
question,  as  hardly  in  accordance  with  any  of  Swedenborg's 
teachings,  Mr.  Collin  said  that  it  did  not  imply  any  worship 


388  FRIENDLY  ACCOUNTS. 

of  angels,  but  only  a  request  to  them,  as  agents  under  Divine 
command.  It  is  much  more  usual  with  Swedenborg  to  ask 
favors,  even  as  simple  as  this,  from  the  Lord.  It  is  his  con- 
stant habit  to  refer  everything  to  the  permission  or  grace 
of  the  Lord,  even  when  it  is  plain  to  see  that  the  favor  is 
granted,  not  specially,  but  in  the  regular  course  of  the  Divine 
Providence,  and  perhaps  through  ordinary  angelic  or  human 
agency  :  such  is  his  delight  to  perceive  and  confess  the  hand 
of  the  Lord  in  everything  !  And  yet  it  is  entirely  in  accord- 
ance with  his  teachings  that  such  matters,  and  all  matters  in 
which  the  Lord  can  use  the  faculties  of  angels,  are  intrusted 
to  them,  acting  under  enlightenment  from  Him. 

In  another  letter  Mr.  Collin  said, — 

"Swedenborg  was  universally  esteemed  for  his  various 
erudition  in  mathematics,  mineralogy,  etc.,  and  for  his  prob- 
ity, benevolence,  and  general  virtue.  Being  very  old  when 
I  saw  him,  he  was  thin  and  pale ;  but  he  still  retained  traces 
of  beauty  in  his  physiognomy,  and  a  dignity  in  his  tall  and 
erect  stature." 

To  our  good  friend,  Mr.  Zina  Hyde,  Mr.  Collin  said, — 

"  Swedenborg  was  of  a  stature  a  little  above  the  common 
size,  of  very  perfect  form,  erect  and  easy  in  his  carriage, 
with  a  placid  expression  of  dignity  beaming  from  his  coun- 
tenance ;  he  was  affable  in  his  manners,  easy  of  access,  and 
always  ready  to  converse  freely  on  subjects  relating  to  either 
world,  but  singularly  unapt  to  obtrude  his  ideas  on  others, 
either  in  conversation  or  by  his  writings,  though  firm  and 
unwavering  with  regard  to  the  truth  of  his  relations.  His 
history  from  very  early  life  was  reputed  to  be  such  as  evinced 
great  purity,  as  well  as  strength,  of  mental  character."  Speak- 
ing of  the  affair  of  the  Queen  of  Sweden,  which  her  libra- 
rian had  told  him  from  her  mouth,  and  of  other  similar 
occurrences,  Mr.  Collin  said  that  he  believed  "no  one  at 
Stockholm  presumed  to  doubt  of  his  having  some  kind  of 
supernatural  intercourse  with  the  spiritual  world  in  all  these 
cases,"  and  this,  he  said,  was  not  strange,  "for  at  that  time 


SCHERER'S   STORY.  389 

occasional  communication  between  this  and  the  invisible 
world  was  believed  to  exist  by  many  of  the  most  learned 
men  in  Sweden." 

Dr.  J.  F.  I.  Tafel,  with  his  friend  the  Rev.  Mr.  Moser, 
was  told  by  Professor  Scherer,  of  Tubingen  University,  who 
had  resided  at  Stockholm  during  Swedenborg's  time  as  secre- 
tary to  an  embassy,  that  "in  Stockholm,  in  all  companies, 
very  much  was  said  about  the  spirit-seer,  Swedenborg,  and 
wonderful  things  were  related  respecting  his  intercourse  with 
spirits  and  angels.  But  the  judgment  pronounced  concern- 
ing him  was  various.  Some  gave  full  credit  to  his  visions, 
others  passed  them  by  as  incomprehensible,  and  others  re- 
jected them  as  fanatical ;  but  he  himself  had  never  been  able 
to  believe  them.  Swedenborg,  however,  on  account  of  his 
excellent  character,  was  universally  held  in  high  estimation." 

Among  other  remarkable  things  Professor  Scherer  related 
that  "  Swedenborg  was  one  evening  in  company  in  Stock- 
holm, when,  after  his  information  about  the  world  of  spirits 
had  been  heard  with  the  greatest  attention,  they  put  him  to 
the  proof  as  to  the  credibility  of  his  extraordinary  spiritual 
communications.  The  test  was  this  :  he  should  state  which 
of  the  company  would  die  first.  Swedenborg  did  not  refuse 
to  answer  this  question,  but  after  some  time,  in  which  he  ap- 
peared to  be  in  profound  and  silent  meditation,  he  quite 
openly  replied :  '  Olof  Olofsohn  will  die  to-morrow  morn- 
ing at  forty-five  minutes  past  four  o'clock.'  By  this  predic- 
tive declaration,  which  was  pronounced  by  Swedenborg  with 
all  confidence,  the  company  were  placed  in  anxious  expec- 
tation, and  a  gentleman  who  was  a  friend  of  Olof  Olofsohn 
resolved  to  go  on  the  following  morning,  at  the  time  men- 
tioned by  Swedenborg,  to  the  house  of  Olofsohn,  to  see 
whether  Swedenborg's  prediction  was  fulfilled.  On  the  way 
thither  he  met  the  well-known  servant  of  Olofsohn,  who  told 
him  that  his  master  had  just  then  died :  a  fit  of  apoplexy 
had  seized  him,  and  had  suddenly  put  an  end  to  his  life. 
Upon  which  the  gentleman,  through  the  evidence  of  the 


39O  FRIENDLY  ACCOUNTS. 

death  which  really  occurred,  was  convinced.  At  the  same 
time  this  particular  circumstance  also  attracted  attention : 
the  clock  in  Olofsohn's  dwelling  apartment  stopped  at  the 
very  minute  in  which  he  had  expired,  and  the  hand  pointed 
to  the  time." 

A  peculiar  and  instructive  answer  was  given  by  Sweden- 
borg  to  a  question  propounded  by  a  foreign  minister  in  1771, 
in  the  following  terms  :  — 

"  It  is  hoped  that  by  means  of  Monsieur  de  Swedenborg 
information  may  be  obtained  of  what  has  become  of  the 
Prince  of  Saxe-Coburg  Saalfeld,  named  John  William,  who 
was  lost  in  the  year  1 745,  without  any  one  having  the  least 
knowledge  of  his  fate.  Neither  his  age  nor  anything  else 
respecting  his  person  has  been  communicated." 

Swedenborg  replied  in  writing,— 

"  No  one  can  find  out  anything  about  this,  since  the  de- 
parted themselves  do  not  know  in  what  manner  they  died  or 
perished  in  the  world ;  for  death  to  them  is  not  death,  but  an 
entrance  into  the  other  life  and  a  continuation  of  the  former. 
They  also  fully  believe  and  think  that  there  is  no  death  at 
all ;  wherefore,  if  any  one  is  asked  about  his  disease  in  the 
world,  it  seems  to  him  as  if  he  was  asked  about  a  thing  which 
has  not  happened.  Besides,  it  is  difficult  to  meet  with  any  one 
who  departed  this  life  twenty-seven  years  ago ;  for  he  is  then 
firmly  established  in  some  society  where  it  is  difficult  for  me 
to  enter.  Should  I  ask  the  angels  on  this  subject,  they  have 
no  such  knowledge  at  all,  and  as  to  interrogating  the  Lord 
Himself  concerning  it,  it  is  too  small  a  matter." 

On  the  other  hand,  as  by  accident,  we  occasionally  get 
from  Swedenborg's  intercourse  with  the  other  world  an  in- 
teresting personal  or  historical  hint.  In  his  "  Diary,"  under 
date  of  December  13,  1759,  he  notes  that  Louis  XIV.,  who 
reigned  in  France  from  1643  to  1715,  came  near  him  in 
spirit  that  evening,  and  went  down  some  steps  in  front,  then 
stopped,  and  said  that  there  he  found  Versailles,  just  as  it  had 
been  in  his  time.  It  seemed  then  that  the  King  became 


BISHOP   HALEN1US. 


391 


abstracted,  as  in  sleep,  and  all  kept  silence  about  him  for 
some  two  hours,  when  he  aroused  as  if  out  of  sleep.  Speak- 
ing with  Swedenborg,  he  said  that  he  had  been  with  his 
great-grandson,  Louis  XV.,  and  urged  him  in  various"  ways 
to  desist  altogether  from  pushing  the  Bull  Unigenitus, — 
which,  at  the  instigation  of  the  Jesuits,  he  had  hitherto 
tried  to  force  upon  the  Parliament  and  people. 

Accordingly,  for  reasons  unknown  to  history,  Louis  XV. 
thereafter  did  nothing  more  to  support  the  Bull ;  and  a  few 
years  later  he  expelled  the  Jesuits  from  France, 

Swedenborg  was  cautious  about  private  conversations,  es- 
pecially with  unknown  women  who  called  to  make  inquiries, 
and  required  the  presence  of  his  servants  or  a  friend,  and 
the  conversation  to  be  in  Swedish.  Bishop  Halenius,  a  suc- 
cessor of  Bishop  Swedberg,  visiting  him,  and  the  conversa- 
tion turning  on  sermons,  Swedenborg  said  to  him  :  "You 
spread  falsities  in  yours."  On  this  the  Bishop  asked  the 
servant  to  withdraw ;  but  Swedenborg  told  her  to  stay,  and 
went  on  to  reprove  the  Bishop  for  his  injustice  and  avarice, 
saying :  "  there  is  already  prepared  for  you  a  place  in  hell ; 
but  1  predict  to  you  that  in  a  few  months  you  will  be  attacked 
by  a  severe  illness,  during  which  the  Lord  will  seek  to  con- 
vert you.  If  you  will  then  open  your  heart  to  His  holy  in- 
fluences, your  conversion  will  be  accomplished.  Write  me 
then,  and  ask  me  for  my  theological  writings,  and  I  will  send 
them  to  you."  After  a  few  months  an  officer  of  the  Bishop's 
province  called  upon  Swedenborg.  "How  is  Bishop  Hale- 
nius?" Swedenborg  asked.  "He  has  been  very  ill,"  he  re- 
plied, "  but  he  has  now  recovered,  and  is  altogether  a  different 
man.  He  is  kind,  benevolent,  full  of  righteousness,  and  re- 
turns threefold,  and  sometimes  fourfold,  what  he  had  before 
acquired  by  unrighteous  means."  From  that  time  the  Bishop 
was  "one  of  the  warmest  friends  of  the  doctrines  of  the 
Lord's  New  Church,  and  he  openly  declared  that  the  theo- 
logical writings  of  Swedenborg  were  the  most  precious  trea- 
sures of  humanity."  l 

1  Pernety. 


392 


FRIENDLY   ACCOUNTS. 


Pleasantly,  a  lady  of  Linkoping  writer  to  the  Rev.  R.  L. 
Tafel,  in  1869,  that  the  daughter  of  this  same  Bishop  Hale- 
nius  told  her  as  follows  :  — 

"  When  quite  a  child  she  and  her  brothers  came  up  to 
Stockholm,  in  the  year  1767,  in  order  to  be  present  at  their 
father's  funeral.  One  day  [after  the  funeral]  the  children 
were  asked  to  dine  with  one  of  their  father's  friends,  who 
lived  in  the  southern  part  of  the  town.  While  walking  up 
Hornsgatan  they  were  overtaken  by  a  violent  shower  of  rain, 
from  which  they  sought  refuge  in  the  hall  of  a  house.  Here 
an  elderly  gentleman  came  cheerfully  towards  them,  and  told 
them  that  they  were  very  welcome.  This  gentleman  was 
Emanuel  Swedenborg.  And  when  the  elder  brother,  who  was 
then  a  mere  boy,  stepped  forward  to  tell  him  why  they  entered 
his  house,  and  that  they  were  the  children  of  Bishop  Halenius, 
Swedenborg  interrupted  the  lad  by  saying,  '  I  know  it  already, 
for  your  father  has  just  been  with  me,  and  told  me  that  you 
were  coming.'  He  then  asked  them  to  step  into  his  room ; 
and  after  conversing  with  him  about  an  hour,  until  the  rain 
stopped,  they  continued  on  their  way." 

Another  elderly  lady  said  that, — 

"  When  four  years  old  she  took  a  walk  one  Sunday  afternoon 
with  her  parents  from  Kungsbaken  to  Swedensborg's  property 
in  Hornsgatan,  in  order  to  visit  his  garden.  This  was  open 
to  the  public,  but  not  to  children  whose  manners  displeased 
this  remarkable  man.  At  the  entrance  to  the  garden,  the 
gardener  gave  the  family  to  understand  that  they  could  not 
enter,  on  account  of  the  child's  being  with  them.  But  Swe- 
denborg, who  was  at  some  distance  from  them  in  one  of  the 
garden  walks,  called  out  to  the  gardener  to  open  the  gate,  as 
the  child  was  so  strictly  trained  to  obedience  that  she  would 
do  no  harm.  The  little  girl  thought  this  remark  quite  natural, 
because  she  knew  it  to  be  true ;  but  later  in  life  she  won- 
dered how  Swedenborg  could  have  known  it,  as  her  family 
lived  at  a  great  distance,  in  the  northern  portion  of  the  town, 
and  was  not  in  the  habit  of  visiting  the  southern  portion." 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

HOME   LIFE  OF   SWEDENBORG. 

STOCKHOLM  is  built  on  a  number  of  small  islands,  at  the 
junction  of  the  Lake  Moelar  with  the  Baltic.  The  islands 
are  joined  by  thirteen  short  bridges  to  each  other  and  to  the 
mainland,  north  and  south.  On  the  islands  are  the  palace, 
the  cathedral,  the  bank,  and  other  public  buildings.  But  most 
of  the  residences  are  on  the  mainland,  in  the  Norrmalm,  or 
northern  suburb,  and  in  the  Sodermalm,  or  southern  suburb. 
The  Norrmalm  slopes  gradually  back  from  the  shore  ;  but  the 
Sodermalm  "rises  in  bold,  abrupt  cliffs,  where  the  white 
houses  nestle  beautifully  among  shading  trees."  l 

In  the  Sodermalm,  nestling  among  his  own  beautiful  lime- 
trees,  was  Swedenborg's  humble  one-story,  gambrel-roofed 
dwelling,  quietly  withdrawn,  with  its  little  red  stable  and 
larger  yellow  plant-house,  to  the  eastern  end  of  the  en- 
closure, leaving  about  an  acre  for  the  garden,  upon  which 
the  house  faced. 

In  the  garden  was  the  chief  attraction  of  the  place.  This 
was  laid  out  formally,  in  accordance  with  the  taste  of  the 
times,  with  straight  border  paths  and  two  crossing  at  right 
angles  in  the  middle.  At  their  crossing  a  rustic  summer-house 
was  placed,  with  four  doors  opening  in  four  directions  on  the 
walks,  and  made  to  fold  back  across  the  corners  of  the  room, 
so  that,  when  they  stood  open,  they  made  of  it  an  octagon. 
Opposite  this  summer-house,  against  the  high  board-fence 
which  separated  the  garden  from  the  street,  was  another 

1  Bremner's  Excursions,  i.  342. 


394  HOME  LIFE  OF  SWEDENBORG. 

summer-house,  with  three  doors  opening  on  the  paths  in 
front  and  on  the  two  sides.  Opposite  the  front  entrance 
appeared  another  door.  On  opening  this  there  was  seen 
another  garden,  the  image  of  the  one  already  traversed,  seen 
in  a  mirror,  behind  which  was  the  wall  of  the  building  and 
the  board-fence.  From  a  third  summer-house,  which  we 
understand  to  have  been  at  the  middle  of  the  west  side,  a 
passage  led  into  a  neat,  retired  library,  where  Swedenborg  sat 
and  wrote  in  peace,  save  when  interrupted  by  friendly  visitors, 
for  whose  pleasure  he  had  built  the  summer-houses,  and  also 
a  curious  maze,  or  labyrinth, — his  own  pleasure  being  in  his 
fruits  and  flowers.  Among  his  letters  and  accounts  from 
Holland  we  find  items  of  rare  bulbs  and  seeds  and  plants, 
shipped  by  his  correspondents.  In  an  old  almanac,  for  1750, 
are  found  his  entries  of  the  days  on  which  he  planted  certain 
choice  auriculas,  pinks,  etc.,  the  time  they  bloomed,  and 
what  seed  he  saved  from  them.  Certain  quaint  old  box-trees, 
curiously  trimmed  and  trained  in  Holland,  of  whose  importa- 
tion we  have  an  account,  were  still  to  be  seen  a  few  years  ago. 
Of  the  gardener  and  his  wife  who  had  the  care  of  these 
premises  we  have  found  frequent  mention.  A  pretty  story  is 
told  of  them  in  a  Swedish  book  by  Dr.  Wetterbey,  called 
Altartaflan, — Altar-pictures,  of  which  the  Rev.  R.  L.  Tafel 
gives  us  the  translation.  A  young  man  sees  pictures,  or  vis- 
ions, which  his  father  explains.  Says  Alfred,  the  son, — 

"  I  saw  a  large  peasant-house,  with  a  dark,  pointed  roof ;  under  the 
roof  there  were  suspended  long  poles  with  bread,  as  is  the  custom  in 
Swedish  peasant  houses.  It  seemed  to  me,  however,  as  if  it  were  not 
a  common  peasant's  house,  although  the  furniture,  the  open  fire-place 
with  the  burning  logs,  surrounded  by  men  carving  wood  and  women 
spinning,  indicated  that  it  was  really  a  peasant's  house.  An  old  man 
was  sitting  on  a  three-legged  stool,  and  seemed  to  be  resting  himself, 
surrounded  by  his  servants.  Suddenly  a  young  man  entered  the 
house,  went  towards  the  old  man,  reached  out  his  hand  to  him  and 
said, — '  Do  you  know,  father,  Jesper  has  been  ordained  a  priest  ? ' 
The  old  man  folded  his  hands  and  said,—'  May  God  grant  that  this 
was  done  in  a  blessed  hour ;  Jesper  has  a  difficult  office/  Then  this 
vision  disappeared.  Soon  another  took  its  place ;  and  I  saw  two  pic- 


THE  SWEDBERG   FAMILY.  395 

tures.  In  one  of  them  was  a  venerable,  grave,  but  mild  man,  dressed 
in  a  bishop's  garb,  and  laying  his  hands  upon  the  curly  head  of  a  boy. 
The  boy  looked  up,  with  his  clear,  penetrating  eyes,  as  if  he  had  asked 
something  to  which  he  expected  an  answer.  There  was  inspiration  in 
his  look.  In  the  other  picture  there  was  a  peasant,  who  went  over 
his  field  sowing ;  and  at  one  end  of  the  field  there  sat  a  boy  reading  a 
book.  But  soon  these  pictures  disappeared,  and  I  saw  nothing  more." 

The  father  looked  smilingly  on  his  son  during  this  narration, 
and  at  its  close  he  said, — 

"  This  is  a  legend  from  olden  times.  If  I  am  not  mistaken,  you 
have  been  at  our  old  homestead,  with  Daniel  Isaksson,  in  Sweden, 
near  Fahlun.  I  know  this  well,  partly  from  our  family  history,  as  it 
has  been  told  me,  and  partly  from  other  sources.  You  see,  Alfred, 
Daniel  Isaksson  was  an  honest  miner, —  half  peasant  and  half  miner  ; 
he  was  joint  owner  of  several  blasting  furnaces,  which  were  run  at 
common  expense,  according  to  the  old  mining  usage  which  gave  each 
of  the  stockholders  the  blasting  of  a  certain  number  of  days.  The 
young  farmer  who  came  in  and  reached  out  his  hand  to  the  old  man 
was  my  grandfather,  Isak  Danielsson,  and  Jesper,  who  became  a 
priest,  was  his  brother, — Jesper  Swedberg.  You  saw  him  afterwards 
as  a  bishop,  and  the  inquiring  boy  at  his  knees,  with  the  look  of  inspi- 
ration, was  Emanuel  Swedenborg.  The  peasant  sowing  was  again  my 
grandfather,  and  the  boy  who  sat  at  one  end  of  the  field  was  my 
father ;  he  also  became  a  priest,  and  called  himself  Danielius,  which 
I  have  changed  into  Danieli." 

"  We  are  then  of  the  same  stock  as  the  noble  seer,"  said  Alfred. 

"  Yes,  Alfred.  When  strange  thoughts  pass  through  my  soul,  and 
I  speak  as  it  were  not  from  my  own  mind,  then  I  think  to  myself, — 
'This  is  in  our  family.'  There  is  something  that  has  not  yet  been 
cleared  up  in  the  heart  of  our  family,  a  sort  of  family  disorder.  I  can- 
not call  it  by  any  other  name,  for  it  is  something  so  uncommon.  But 
enough  of  this,  Alfred.  There  are  strange  thoughts  among  them,  and 
presentiments  which  are  quite  surprising :  but  '  This  is  in  our  family.' " 

Alfred  smiled  and  said, — 

"  It  is  in  the  whole  human  family." 

"  Yes,  certainly,  there  is  a  great  deal  in  man  of  which  we  know 
nothing ;  there  are  faculties  in  him  that  none  of  us  suspect.  So,  for 
instance,  the  savage  in  Africa  sees  the  water  flowing  deep  under  the 
surface  of  the  earth  ;  he  says, — '  Here  is  water ; '  and  on  digging  far 
down  it  is  found.  This  is  neither  sight,  nor  smell,  nor  hearing  ;  and 
yet  it  is  some  kind  of  sense,  however  it  may  be  called;  and  it  is  a 
sense  of  which  we  know  nothing  in  Europe,  and  in  the  absence  of 


396  HOME  LIFE. 

which  a  civilized  and  enlightened  human  being  dies  of  thirst,  a  few 
feet  from  the  spring  that  might  save  him." 

"  But,  father,  did  you  never  iri  your  youth  see  Swedenborg  and  talk 
with  him  ? "  said  Alfred. 

"  No,  my  son ;  only  once  during  the  lifetime  of  this  remarkable 
man  was  my  father  in  Stockholm ;  but  Swedenborg  was  at  that  time 
in  England,  where  he  frequently  resided,  and  we  did  not  meet  him. 
We  visited  the  house  which  he  owned  in  the  Sodermalm.  I  was  then 
a  mere  boy,  but  I  recollect  it  as  well  as  if  it  had  happened  only  to-day. 
My  fancy  was  very  much  excited,  and  I  expected  to  find  the  place 
where  this  wonderful  man  resided  something  between  a  church  and  a 
burying-vault. 

"  My  father,  although  he  was  an  Orthodox  priest,  had  nevertheless 
also  a  tendency  to  mysticism.  But  he  labored  as  much  as  possible 
against  this  bias  of  his  nature,  and  in  his  anxiety  to  overcome  it  he 
went  further  than  he  otherwise  would  have  done.  In  consequence  of 
this,  he  always  described  Swedenborg  to  me  as  a  sort  of  visionary,  and 
his  doctrine  as  thoroughly  un-Christian  and  without  any  foundation. 
Yet,  in  spite  of  all  this,  I  noticed  that  these  prejudices  were  merely  a 
thin  veil,  under  which  there  lay  concealed  a  feeling  of  deep  venera- 
tion for  this  uncommonly  gifted  man.  Children  generally  have  this 
faculty  of  seeing  through  the  shell  to  the  kernel.  And  it  is  this  which 
often  renders  them  familiar  and  unrestrained  in  the  company  of  a 
stern  old  man,  and  in  tumbling  up  his  gray  locks  ;  when,  on  the  other 
hand,  they  will  hide  away  in  a  corner  when  a  smooth-tongued  cour- 
teous man  of  the  world  desires  to  flatter  them.  We  can  always  rest 
assured  that  children  will  gather  around  a  man  who  loves  them, 
though  he  may  not  have  expressed  his  fondness  by  a  single  word.  In 
short,  I  saw  through  my  good  old  father,  how  his  words  belied  his 
inner  feeling ;  and  this  contradiction  increased  my  curiosity  to  know 
something  about  our  absent  kinsman,  who  it  seemed  to  me  was  him- 
self a  sort  of  spirit-being. 

"  But  he  was  not  at  home  ;  the  little  building  in  which  he  used  to 
live  was  in  the  rear  of  a  large  garden,  full  of  berry-bushes  and  fruit- 
trees.  How  simple  and  unassuming  was  this  house  !  Nothing  like 
the  enchanted  castle  in  the  Arabian  Nights,  which  I  had  pictured  to 
myself.  Instead  of  the  castle,  I  found  a  one-storied  dwelling-house, 
with  a  few  dark  rooms ;  and  instead  of  an  enchanted  dwarf  there 
came  out  a  cheerful,  friendly  little  woman,  who  asked  whether  we 
wished  to  see  the  Assessor's  room  ? 

"  When  the  good  old  woman  learned  that  we  were  distantly  related 
to  her  Assessor,  the  band  of  her  tongue  was  loosed,  and  she  related  to 
us  a  little  story,  which  I  have  never  seen  in  print,  and  perhaps  better 
than  anything  else  characterizes  Swedenborg  as  a  man.  '  Yes/  said 


STORY   OF   THE  GARDENER.  397 

the  little  old  woman,  '  people  judge  without  seeing,  and  this  almost 
cost  me  and  Andersson  our  places.  You  see  my  old  man  who  goes 
yonder,  raking  the  flower-beds  :  it  almost  cost  us  our  whole  happiness.' 

f< '  How  so  ? '  asked  my  father. 

" '  You  know,  dear  Pastor,  there  were  so  many  among  our  friends 
who  said  to  me, — "  You  ought  not  to  serve  in  Swedenborg's  house,  for 
he  is  no  Christian,"  they  said.  Now  the  truth  is,  that  then,  as  now, 
we  thought  ever  so  much  of  our  Assessor,  but  when  I  heard  that  he 
had  not  the  true  faith  which  leads  to  blessedness,  I  began  to  doubt 
whether  it  was  right  to  serve  in  his  house.  It  was  a  hard  struggle, 
for  I  thought  as  much  of  the  Assessor  as  of  my  own  father ;  and  so 
I  lay  many  a  night  weeping  bitterly  that  the  Assessor  was  not  a  Chris- 
tian, and  praying  for  the  salvation  of  his  soul.  I  really  fretted  myself 
ill  out  of  mere  sorrow,  for  you  see  my  friends  worried  me  so  much, 
and  insisted  that  I  should  leave  the  house  of  this  heathen,  who  did  not 
believe  in  Christ, —  for  so  they  said.  At  last  Andersson  noticed  that 
I  no  longer  ate  or  drank,  and  wanted  to  know  the  cause,  and  begged 
so  hard  that  I  told  him  all.  Yes,  Andersson  is  a  good  man,  and  he 
always  believes  me  rather  than  himself;  and  so  he  also  began  to 
worry.' 

"  But,  if  I  should  tell  the  whole  story  in  her  words,"  said  Dan- 
ieli,  "  it  would  make  it  too  long,  and  so  I  shall  relate  more  briefly  what 

happened. 

"  One  day  the  old  man  and  the  old  woman,  the  modest  gardener-folks, 
dressed  in  their  holiday  suits,  entered  Swedenborg's  silent  study,  the 
room  with  the  brown  panel-paintings,  the  gable  windows,  and  a  view 
out  on  the  lilac  bushes.  Swedenborg  sat  with  his  head  resting  upon 
both  hands,  poring  over  a  large  book.  Astonished  at  the  unusual 
noise,  he  raised  his  head  and  looked  towards  the  door.  There  stood 
the  good  gardener-folks,  though  but  the  middle  of  the  week,  both 
dressed  in  their  holiday  clothes,  bowing  and  curtseying.  On  Sweden- 
borg's grave  but  cheerful  countenance  there  played  an  inquiring  smile. 

"  '  Why  dressed  up  so,  Andersson  and  Margaret?'  he  said,  '  What 
do  you  want  ? ' 

"  This  was  not  in  truth  easy  to  say,  and,  instead  of  an  answer,  Mar- 
garet began  to  cry,  and  her  husband  crushed  his  hat  into  a  thousand 
wrinkles,  and  in  his  heart  wished  himself  more  than  a  thousand  miles 
away. 

"'Is  there  any  care  that  lies  upon  your  hearts,  any  distress  which 
has  suddenly  come  over  you  ? '  said  Swedenborg,  — '  Then  speak  out 
plainly,  and,  with  God's  help,  it  will  all  go  well  again.' 

" '  Yes,'  at  last  said  the  old  gardener,  '  yes,  we  wish  to  leave  the 
Assessor's  service.' 

"  Swedenborg  seemed  surprised.    '  Leave  me  !  and  why  ? '  he  asked, 


398  HOME  LIFE. 

with  his  penetrating,  friendly  look,  which  pierced  them  to  their  very 
heart ;  '  I  thought,  as  we  were  growing  old  together,  we  should  to  our 
very  end  remain  faithful  to  one  another,  and  never  separate  in  this 
life.' 

" '  Yes,  so  also  we  thought  ourselves,'  burst  out  the  housewife,  al- 
most overcome  with  tears ;  'for  thirty  years  we  have  served  you,  and 
I  thought  it  would  be  God's  pleasure  that  we  should  die  in  your  gar- 
den, and  under  your  eyes  ;  but,  but  — ' 

" '  Speak  out,  woman ;  what  lies  so  heavily  upon  your  heart  ?  I 
know  that  both  of  you  think  a  great  deal  of  me.  Is  it  not  so  ?  ' 

u '  Yes,  before  God  it  is  so/  said  both  of  them  together. 

"'Speak  out  then,'  said  Swedenborg  with  a  smile,  'and  then  we 
may  be  able  to  help  the  matter.' 

"  The  housewife,  whose  strong  emotion  gave  her  courage  to  speak, 
and  words  to  express  her  thoughts,  at  last  began :  '  Yes,  people  say 
we  ought  not  to  serve  you  any  longer,  because  you  are  not  a  right 
Christian.' 

"  '  Nothing  else,  my  good  woman,'  said  Swedenborg  quietly  ;  '  noth- 
ing else  ?  Well,  let  the  world  judge  so ;  but  why  should  you  think 
so?' 

" '  You  see  you  never  go  to  Church  ;  for  years  you  have  never  been 
inside  St.  Mary's  Church.' 

'"Have  you  never  read,'  replied  Swedenborg  solemnly, '  that,  where 
two  or  three  are  gathered  together  in  the  Lord's  name,  there  is  His 
Church  and  meeting-place  ?  Do  you  believe  that  it  is  the  steeple  and 
copper  roof  which  makes  a  holy  place  of  it  ?  Do  you  believe  that  it 
is  holy  for  any  one  else  but  him  who  has  in  his  heart  Christ's  Church  ? 
Do  you  believe  that  it  is  the  walls,  organ,  and  pulpit,  which  constitute 
its  holiness  ? ' 

"  '  No,  no  ;  I  know  that  well  enough/ 

" '  Well,  then,  here  at  home,  in  this  room,  in  the  arbor,  in  the  garden, 
wherever  a  man  or  spirit  lives  within  or  without  space  and  time,  wher- 
ever a  prayer  is  either  thought  or  read,  wherever  a  voice  of  thanks- 
giving is  sent  up  to  Him  who  is  the  Giver  of  all  good,  there  is  His 
Church  ;  and  it  is  consequently  here  where  I  live  sheltered  from  the 
world.' 

"  Both  the  faithful  servants  bowed  their  heads  and  said, — '  But  this 
is  not  the  way  of  the  world.' 

" '  The  way  of  the  world,  my  friends  ? '  replied  Swedenborg,  '  I 
suppose  the  way  of  the  world  is  Christian,  is  it  not  ? ' 

" '  Yes,  it  is.' 

"  '  In  name  it  is,  but  not  in  spirit  and  in  truth.  Faith  without  works 
is  a  dead  faith :  a  flower  which  does  not  live  is  nothing  but  lifeless 
dust ;  and  faith  which  does  not  live  in  every  action  of  man  is  a  dead 


STORY  OF   THE  GARDENER.  399 

faith, —  it  is  no  faith  at  all.  Here,  my  friends,  see  what  this  Christian 
world  really  does.  They  call,  indeed,  upon  Him,  the  only  Son,  in 
their  times  of  need,  but  they  forget  both  His  teaching  and  His  life. 
Like  an  obstinate  child  who  despises  warning,  they  rush  into  all  man- 
ner of  lusts,  into  pride  and  wickedness,  which  are  like  a  thin,  frail 
covering  over  an  abyss ;  and  over  this  yawning  abyss  they  scoff  at 
their  teacher,  and  act  foolishly  and  madly  until  this  covering  breaks. 
Then  they  call  out  for  help,  but  in  vain,  for  they  have  long  since  for- 
feited it ;  sometimes  they  are  dragged  up  again,  but  in  their  foolish 
pride  they  let  go  the  Saving  Hand,  they  spurn  the  healing  repentance, 
and  continue  their  course  of  vain  talk  and  idle  sport.  So  does  the 
Christian  world,  and  they  think  that  all  that  is  necessary  for  them  is 
to  have  a  priest  to  speak  to  them  a  few  hours  in  the  week  about  God 
and  the  Saviour;  and  they  do  not  think  that  any  more  is  required  of 
them  than  to  hear  and  to  forget.  They  therefore  believe  that  it  is 
outward  gesture,  the  singing  of  psalms,  and  the  tones  of  the  organ, 
together  with  the  empty  sound  of  recited  prayers,  which  penetrate  to 
the  Lord  in  heaven.  Truly  when  the  people  prostrate  themselves  in 
the  churches,  then  it  is  the  voice  of  a  few  only  that  penetrates  to  the 
Lord. 

" '  Let  me  tell  you  something.  To-day  there  was  a  little  child  sitting 
in  the  street,  a  little  blind  girl,  who  folded  her  little  hands  upon  her 
lap,  and  turned  her  darkened  eyes  towards  heaven ;  and  when  I  saw 
her,  and  asked  her,  "  What  makes  you  look  so  happy,  although  you 
are  blind  ?  " —  the  little  girl  said,  "  I  am  thinking  of  God,  our  Father, 
who  will  some  day  take  me  to  Him,  and  show  me  all  His  splendor." 
Truly,  my  good  people,  it  was  only  at  the  corner  of  the  street  that  she 
sat,  yet  I  took  off  my  hat,  and  bowed  my  head,  for  I  knew  that  God 
was  near,  and  that  this  was  a  holy  place. 

" '  No,  there  is  a  worm  gnawing  at  the  kernel  of  Christianity,  al- 
though its  shell  is  whole.  Charity  is  the  kernel,  and  the  outward 
forms  are  the  shell.  Where  do  you  see  charity  in  this  uncharitable 
world  ?  As  long  as  violence  prevails  and  rules,  as  long  as  selfishness 
and  avarice  oppress  mankind,  as  long  as  earthly  happiness  is  the  goal 
which  we  endeavor  to  reach,  so  long  the  world  is  not  Christian.  But 
when  men  at  all  times  and  everywhere  recognize  that  they  are  in  God's 
Presence  and  under  His  eyes  ;  when  each  of  their  actions  is  the  reflec- 
tion of  His  eternal  love  and  of  His  example;  when  their  goal  is 
placed  beyond  the  reach  of  time,  and  not  here  in  the  dust, —  then  only 
are  men  Christians.  Do  you  know,  my  friends,  what  I  have  done  ? 
Nothing  else  than  what  was  formerly  done  in  Palestine.  When  the 
Christians  were  on  the  point  of  giving  way,  then  the  standard  was 
thrown  beyond,  as  a  goal  for  them  to  follow,  and  thither  they  pressed 
over  to  the  other  side,  and  as  they  rushed  they  conquered.  So  also 


4OO  HOME   LIFE. 

have  I  set  up  the  goal  for  mankind,  not  only  for  their  thoughts,  but 
also  for  their  deeds,  in  another  world,  so  as  to  let  them  know  that  it  is 
not  enough  for  them  to  gather  themselves  together,  but  .they  need  also 
to  struggle.  Such,  then,  is  my  faith.  If  I  believe  more  than  others,  I 
certainly  do  not  believe  less.  And  now,  my  friends,  look  back  upon 
those  thirty  years  during  which  you  have  followed  me  almost  daily 
with  your  eyes,  and  then  judge  whether  it  is  I  or  others  who  are 
Christian.  Judge  for  yourselves.  I  submit  myself  to  your  judg- 
ment, and  then  do  what  you  deem  to  be  right.' 

"  He  beckoned  with  his  hand  and  they  went  away ;  and  then  quietly, 
as  if  nothing  had  happened,  he  continued  his  reading. 

"  The  next  day  they  stood  again,  in  their  week-day  clothes,  in  the 
presence  of  their  master,  who  asked  them  with  a  friendly  smile, — 
'Well,  how  did  the  examination  turn  out?' 

" '  Oh,  master  Assessor,'  said  both  of  them,  '  we  looked  for  a  single 
word,  for  a  single  action,  which  was  not  in  agreement  with  what  the 
Lord  had  commanded  us,  yet  we  could  not  find  a  single  one/ 

"'Very  well,'  said  Swedenborg;  'but  it  is  not  quite  so;  many 
thoughts  have  been,  and  many  an  action  has  been,  not  perfectly 
straight ;  yet  I  have  tried  to  do  as  well  as  I  could.  And  as  a  child, 
who  in  the  beginning  spells  out  his  words,  and  stumbles  often  before 
he  can  read,  provided  he  goes  to  work  lovingly  and  cheerfully  and 
strives  hard  to  do  better,  is  loved  by  his  father,  so  also  it  may  have 
been  with  me ;  at  least  I  pray  and  hope  that  it  may  be  so.  But  you 
will  remain  with  me  ? ' 

" '  Yes,  master  Assessor,  until  our  death.' 

" '  Thank  you,  my  friends ;  I  knew  it  would  be  so.  Let  people  say 
what  they  please  about  my  teachings,  but  do  you  judge  them  by  my 
life :  if  they  agree,  then  all  is  right ;  but  if  there  is  the  least  disagree- 
ment between  them,  then  one  of  the  two  must  be  wrong.' 

"  When  the  little  old  woman  had  finished  her  story,  which  she  had 
told  after  the  manner  of  her  people,  by  constantly  repeating  '  said  the 
Assessor,'  and  'said  I,'  her  eyes  were  glistening  with  emotion,  and  she 
added, — '  God,  indeed,  must  have  forsaken  us  when  He  allowed  us 
to  go  astray  so  far  as  to  suspect  our  own  Assessor  of  not  being  a 
Christian.' 

"The  good  old  woman  took  us  through  the  garden,  which  was 
decked  in  its  greatest  autumnal  splendor,  and  was  loaded  with  berries 
and  fruits ;  and  as  we  were  walking  along,  with  a  side  glance  at  me, 
she  said  that  the  Assessor  never  allowed  children  in  his  garden  ;  '  but 
^sometimes,'  she  added,  'he  lets  one  or  the  other  slip  in, but  not  before 
'he  has  looked  at  him  and  has  said,  —  "  Let  the  child  pass,  he  will  not 
take  anything  without  leave," — and  he  has  never  made  any  mistake. 
This  he  sees  from  their  eyes.' " 


LODGINGS  IN  LONDON.  40! 

From  these  simple  friends  who  made  Swedenborg's  home 
in  Stockholm,  let  us  turn  to  those  who  served  him  in  a  simi- 
lar way  the  last  few  months  of  his  life  in  London. 

Richard  Shearsmith,  of  Coldbath  fields,  was  a  respectable 
wig-maker,  with  whom  Swedenborg  had  lodged  for  some  two 
years  on  his  previous  stay  in  London.  On  the  arrival  of  the 
vessel  in  which  he  sailed  from  Holland  in  1771,  Swedenborg 
took  a  coach  and  directed  the  driver  to  Mr.  Shearsmith 's, 
Great  Bath  Street.  Mr.  Shearsmith  was  just  going  out  on 
business,  when  he  heard  the  foreigner's  voice  calling  from  the 
coach-window  to  the  driver, — "  Dat  be  he  !  Dat  be  he  !  " 
The  coach  was  stopped,  and  Swedenborg  was  welcomed  into 
the  house.  But  when  he  told  his  errand,  that  he  wished  to 
renew  his  lodgings  there,  he  learned  that  his  rooms  were  then 
occupied  by  another  family.  Singularly  enough,  however,  as 
soon  as  the  family  heard  of  Swedenborg's  wish,  they  imme- 
diately made  way  for  him,  though  without  previous  acquain- 
tance. It  was  a  place  that  the  old  gentleman  found  himself 
at  home  in,  for  the  reason  that  there  was  peace  in  the  house. 
He  had  come  upon  it  in  the  first  instance  when  in  search  of 
a  former  landlord,  who  had  left  the  neighborhood.  Inquiring 
at  another  place  he  declined  to  lodge  there,  frankly  saying 
that  there  was  no  harmony  in  the  house.  As  frankly  the 
good  woman  admitted  the  fact  and  recommended  the  Shear- 
smiths,  where  he  himself,  according  to  Mrs.  Shearsmith,  be- 
came "a  blessing  to  the  house,  for  they  had  harmony  and 
good  business  while  he  was  with  them."  Mr.  Shearsmith  at 
first  was  alarmed  about  his  lodger,  "by  reason  of  his  talking 
night  and  day,"  sometimes  while  writing,  and  sometimes 
standing  in  the  door-way,  as  if  holding  a  conversation  with 
some  one  entering  or  departing.  Here,  as  at  home,  "he  had 
no  particular  regard  for  times  or  seasons,  days  or  nights ; 
only  taking  rest  when  nature  required  it.  He  did  not  indulge 
in  needless  gratifications.  He  went  not  to  any  place  of  wor- 
ship during  his  abode  with  Mr.  Shearsmith.  He  did  not 
want  money.  ...  He  lay  some  weeks  in  a  trance,  without 

26 


4O2  HOME  LIFE. 

any  sustenance,  and  came  to  himself  again.  This  was  not 
long  before  his  death.  He  seldom  or  never  complained  of 
any  bodily  pain,  but  was  attacked  before  his  death  with  a 
kind  of  paralytic  stroke.  .  .  .  The  dress  that  he  generally 
wore  when  he  went  out  to  visit,  was  a  suit  of  black  velvet, 
made  after  an  old  fashion,  a  pair  of  long  ruffles,  a  curious 
hilted  sword,  and  a  gold-headed  cane.  He  ate  little  or  no 
animal  food,  only  a  few  eels  sometimes.  His  chief  sustenance 
was  cakes,  tea,  and  coffee  made  exceedingly  sweet.  His 
drink  was  water.  He  took  a  great  deal  of  snuff.  .  .  .  His  hair 
was  not  dark,  but  approaching  to  a  pale  auburn.  His  eyes 
were  gray,  approaching  to  brown.1  He  wore  a  wig,  as  was 
the  custom  of  his  time."  Whether  this  description  of  his 
person  is  from  Mr.  Shearsmith,  or  from  the  lady  who  gives 
other  particulars  on  his  authority,  is  not  clear,  nor  important. 

A  certain  professor  of  religion  objected  to  Mr.  Shearsmith 
that  Swedenborg  could  not  be  a  good  Christian,  because  he 
did  not  pay  particular  attention  to  the  Sabbath-day,  forgetting 
altogether  the  day  of  the  week,  in  his  spiritual  labors,  and  yet 
glad  when  reminded  of  it.  To  this  Mr.  Shearsmith  replied, 
— "To  a  good  man,  like  Swedenborg,  every  day  of  his  life  is 
a  Sabbath."  From  the  first  day  of  his  coming  to  reside  at 
this  house,  "  to  the  last  day  of  his  life,  he  always  conducted 
himself  in  the  most  rational,  prudent,  pious,  and  Christian- 
like  manner." 

It  was  near  Christmas  when  Swedenborg  had  the  paralytic 
stroke  "which  deprived  him  of  his  speech  and  occasioned 
his  lying  in  a  lethargic  state  for  three  weeks  and  upwards," 
during  which  he  took  no  nourishment,  but  a  little  tea  and 
cold  water  occasionally.  Then  "he  recovered  his  speech 
and  health  a  little,  and  ate  toast  and  drank  tea  and  coffee,  as 
usual."  From  that  time,  however,  he  was  visited  by  only  a  few 
friends  and  always  seemed  unwilling  to  see  company.  About 
a  month  before  he  died  he  told  Mrs.  Shearsmith  on  what 
particular  day  he  should  die.  "About  a  fortnight  or  three 
1  Compare  p.  341. 


THE  LAST  BREATH. 


403 


weeks  before  he  died,  he  received  the  sacrament  in  bed  from 
the  hands  of  a  foreign  clergyman,  and  enjoyed  a  sound  mind, 
memory,  and  understanding  to  the  last  hour  of  his  life." 
About  five  o'clock  on  Sunday,  March  29,  1772,  he  asked 
the  time.  In  expectation  of  the  day  he  had  been  "pleased 
as  if  he  were  going  to  have  a  holiday,  to  go  to  some  merry- 
making;" and  now,  when  he  learned  the  hour,  he  said, — 
"Dat  be  good,  me  tank  you  ;  God  bless  you," — and  in  about 
ten  minutes  "he  heaved  a  gentle'  sigh  and  expired  in  the 
most  tranquil  manner." 

We  have  already  learned  from  his  friends,  Hartley,  Messiter, 
and  Ferelius,  of  the  brief  conversations  Swedenborg  held  with 
them  in  these  last  days.  There  was  then  in  London  an  emi- 
nent man,  whose  own  life's  work  bore  a  strange  and  unknown 
relation  to  that  of  Swedenborg,  and  to  whom  Swedenborg 
sent  a  note,  in  the  month  of  February,  to  the  effect  that  he 
had  been  informed  in  the  world  of  spirits  of  his  desire  to 
converse  with  him,  and  that  he  would  be  happy  to  see  him  if 
he  would  favor  him  with  a  visit.  This  note  John  Wesley 
received  in  company,  and  "frankly  acknowledged  that  he  had 
been  very  strongly  impressed  with  a  desire  to  see  and  con- 
verse with  Swedenborg,  and  that  he  had  never  mentioned  the 
desire  to  any  one."  He  wrote  in  reply  that  he  was  then  busily 
engaged  in  preparing  for  a  six  months'  circuit,  but  would 
do  himself  the  pleasure  of  waiting  upon  Swedenborg  soon 
after  his  return  to  London.  To  this  Swedenborg  replied  that 
the  visit  proposed  would  be  too  late,  as  he  should  go  into  the 
world  of  spirits  on  the  2pth  day  of  the  next  month,  never 
more  to  return.  Mr.  Wesley  left  London  on  the  first  of 
March  and  was  gone  some  months  ;  when  he  returned,  it  was 
quite  too  late  to  see  Swedenborg. 

Friendly  Swedes  in  London  took  charge  of  the  funeral 
services,  at  which  their  pastor  Ferelius  officiated,  and  Swe- 
denborg's  earthly  remains  were  interred  in  a  threefold  coffin 
in  the  vault  of  the  Swedish  Church,  in  Prince's  Square, 
Ratcliffe  Highway,  London.  Could  all  have  been  gathered 


404 


HOME   LIFE. 


together  who  at  that  day  revered  Swedenborg  as  their  teacher 
and  guide,  the  little  Church  might  have  held  them,  but  the 
company  would  have  been  honorable  in  its  intelligence  and 
position  and  private  worth.  Could  all  be  together  who  a 
hundred  years  later  would  have  rejoiced  to  gather  for  such 
a  testification  of  their  love,  there  are  single  churches  in  the 
world  that  might  perhaps  have  held  them,  though  none  that 
could  begin  to  hold  the  followers  of  Wesley.  A  hundred 
years  yet  to  come,  we  will  not  say  that  the  relative  numbers 
will  be  changed,  but,  while  the  growth  of  the  New  Jerusalem 
will  be  steadily  advancing,  we  believe  that  throughout  the 
Methodist  Church,  and  all  other  Protestant  Churches,  the 
name  of  Swedenborg  will  be  revered  above  that  of  all  human 
teachers. 

On  the  yth  of  October,  after  the  death  of  Swedenborg, 
a  Eulogy  was  pronounced  upon  him  in  the  Great  Hall  of  the 
House  of  Nobles,  at  Stockholm,  in  the  name  of  the  Royal 
Academy  of  Sciences,  by  Samuel  Sandels,  Counsellor  of  the 
Royal  College  of  Mines,  and  member  of  the  Academy.  Of 
this  Eulogy,  we  copy  the  following  passages,  using  the  trans- 
lation of  R.  L.  Tafel :  — 

"  GENTLEMEN, —  Allow  me  on  the  present  occasion  to  direct  your 
thoughts,  not  to  a  distant  or  wearisome  subject,  but  to  one  which  it  is 
both  a  duty  and  a  pleasure  for  us  to  consider ;  namely,  the  memory  of 
a  noble  man  celebrated  alike  for  his  virtues  and  the  depth  of  his 
knowledge,  who  was  one  of  the  oldest  members  of  this  academy,  and 
whom  we  all  knew  and  loved. 

"  The  feeling  of  affection  and  high  esteem  which  we  all  entertained 
for  the  late  Assessor  of  the  Royal  College  of  Mines,  EMANUEL 
SWEDENBORG,  assures  me  that  you  will  love  to  hear  me  speak  of 
him ;  and  happy  shall  I  be  if  I  can  fulfil  your  desire,  and  pronounce 
his  eulogy  as  he  deserves.  But  if,  as  artists  declare,  there  are  some 
countenances  of  which  it  is  difficult  to  give  an  exact  likeness,  how 
much  more  difficult  will  it  be  to  do  justice  to  a  vast  and  sublime 
genius,  who  never  knew  either  repose  or  fatigue  ;  who,  occupied  with 
sciences  the  most  profound,  was  long  engaged  with  researches  into 
the  secrets  of  nature,  but  in  later  years  applied  all  his  efforts  to  un- 
veil still  greater  mysteries ;  who,  in  respect  to  certain  principles  of 
knowledge,  went  his  own  separate  way,  but  never  lost  sight  of  the 


SANDELS'  EULOGY.  405 

principles  of  morality  and  the  fear  of  God ;  who  was  possessed  of 
remarkable  power,  even  in  the  decline  of  his  age,  and  boldly  tried  to 
find  how  far  the  power  of  thought  could  be  stretched ;  and  who,  dur- 
ing the  whole  of  this  time,  has  furnished  materials  for  a  great  variety 
of  thoughts  and  judgments  upon  himself,  differing  from  one  another 
as  much  as  do  the  faculties  of  the  men  who  think  and  judge ;  .  .  . 
who  worked  so  unremittingly  and  so  zealously  in  the  cause  of  knowl- 
edge and  enlightenment,  that,  with  the  single  exception  perhaps  of  his 
desire  to  penetrate  too  deeply,  there  is  nothing  whatever  in  his  whole 
character  with  which  we  can  find  fault." 

After  describing  Swedenborg's  parentage,  his  youth,  his 
studies,  his  appointment  by  Charles  XII.,  for  his  merits,  to 
an  important  place  while  yet  a  young  man,  and  his  early 
publications,  Sandels-  proceeds, — 

"  We  shall  have  now  to  follow  him  in  many  long  journeys,  under- 
taken for  various  purposes  and  pursuits,  and  at  times  in  ways  where  it 
is  easy  to  go  astray  ;  and  in  order  that  in  his  society  no  doubt  or  un- 
certainty may  arise  in  your  minds,  which  often  happens  when  one  has 
not  fully  examined  the  character  and  disposition  of  another,  picture 
to  yourselves  an  harmonious  development  of  memory,  understanding, 
and  judgment ;  imagine  these  qualities  united  with  an  intense  desire 
of  the  heart,  which  can  only  be  satisfied  by  the  ceaseless  endeavor  to 
become  profoundly  learned  in  philosophy,  in  almost  all  parts  of  math- 
ematics, in  natural  history,  physics,  chemistry,  in  anatomy,  and  even 
in  theology,  and  to  acquire  proficiency  in  the  Oriental  and  European 
languages ;  keep  in  mind  also  the  power  of  habit,  which  in  a  certain 
manner  acts  in  accordance  with  reason,  certainly  in  respect  to  the  or- 
der of  thought ;  and  remember  that  our  thoughts  when  too  much  en- 
gaged with,  and  centred  upon,  abstract  subjects,  are  wont  to  carry  us 
away  in  the  same  direction,  and  sometimes  too  fast, —  especially  when 
accompanied  with  an  ardent  imagination, —  so  that  we  are  unable 
properly  to  discriminate  the  objects  that  come  before  us.  Add  to  all 
this  a  genuinely  good  disposition,  proved  by  the  Rules  of  Life  which 
I  found  among  Mr.  Swedenborg's  manuscripts  in  more  than  one  place, 
and  which  he  wrote  down  for  his  own  use :  First,  diligently  to  read 
and  meditate  upon  the  Word  of  God ;  Secondly,  to  be  content  under 
the  dispensations  of  God's  Providence  ;  Thirdly,  to  observe  a  propri- 
ety of  behavior,  and  preserve  the  conscience  pure ;  Fourthly,  to  obey 
what  is  commanded,  to  attend  faithfully  to  one's  office  and  other  duties, 
and  in  addition  to  make  oneself  useful  to  society  in  general. 

"  Any  one  who  says  that  I  have  here  presented  any  other  than  the 
manifest  and  truthful  features  of  Swedenborg's  inner  being,  must  be 


406  HOME  LIFE. 

prejudiced  either  on  the  one  side  or  on  the  other.  Let  such  a  one 
consider  more  closely  what  I  have  already  said,  and  what  I  have  still 
further  to  say." 

After  dwelling  at  some  length  on  his  various  labors  in  sci- 
ence, in  engineering,  in  the  duties  of  the  College  of  Mines, 
and  lastly  in  the  publication  of  his  Opera  Philosophica,  San- 
dels  continues, — 

"  The  Consistory  of  the  University  and  the  Society  of  Sciences  at 
Upsal  felt  proud  at  having  previously  recognized  the  merits  of  our 
countryman,  and  at  having  publicly  testified  the  high  esteem  in  which 
they  held  him;  for  the  Consistory  had,  in  1724,  invited  him,  'for  the 
advantage  of  youth,  and  as  an  ornament  of  the  university/  to  apply 
for  the  professorship  of  the  higher  mathematics,  which  had  become 
vacant  by  the  death  of  Professor  Nils  Celsius,  but  which  invitation  he 
thankfully  declined;  and  the  Society  of  Sciences  had  admitted  him 
into  the  number  of  its  members  in  1729.  The  learned  abroad  also 
hastened  to  send  him  marks  of  their  esteem.  The  Academy  of  Sci- 
ences of  St.  Petersburg  by  a  letter  of  invitation,  dated  December  17, 
1734,  desired  to  admit  him  among  its  corresponding  members.  Chris- 
tian Wolff,  and  other  foreign  men  of  learning,  addressed  him  by  letter, 
in  order  to  obtain  his  ideas  on  subjects  which  they  found  it  difficult  to 
fathom.  The  editors  of  the  Acta  Eruditorum  in  Leipsic,  in  which  the 
contents  of  the  works  of  the  learned  are  discussed,  and  impartial 
opinions  pronounced  upon  them,  found  in  his  work  a  rich  store  with 
which  to  adorn  their  pages.  Nor  has  time  deprived  this  work  of  any 
of  its  value.  The  authors  of  the  magnificent  Descriptions  des  Arts  et 
M&ters,  which  is  now  in  course  of  publication  in  France,  thought  so 
highly  of  that  part  of  the  Opera  Philosophica  et  Mineralia  which 
covers  the  same  ground  as  their  own  publication,  that  they  translated 
the  second  part,  which  treats  of  iron  and  steel,  and  inserted  it  entire 
in  their  collection.  Our  Royal  Academy,  also,  when  it  was  founded, 
hastened  to  enroll  among  its  first  members  a  man  who  already  held 
so  distinguished  a  rank  in  other  learned  societies. 

"  I  have  hitherto  spoken  only  of  one  part  of  Swedenborg's  works ; 
but  the  others  take  a  different  direction.  Let  us  therefore  dwell  a 
little  longer  on  the  former.  These  works  are  unmistakably  proofs 
that  his  desire  for  learning  extended  in  all  directions,  and  that  he  by 
preference  occupied  himself  with  studies  which  cannot  be  mastered 
without  mature  judgment  and  profound  thought.  No  one  can  charge 
him  with  having  wished  to  shine  in  borrowed  plumes,  or  with  re- 
arranging and  giving  a  different  coloring  to  the  work  of  others,  and 
then  publishing  it  under  his  own  name  ;  for  everywhere  we  perceive 


SANDELS'   EULOGY.  407 

that  he  did  not  depend  upon  others,  but  followed  his  own  thoughts, 
and  often  made  observations  and  applications  which  cannot  be  found 
in  any  other  author  of  his  times.  Nor  can  he,  like  the  majority  of 
those  who  make  it  a  point  to  acquire  encyclopaedic  knowledge,  be 
charged  with  having  remained  on  the  surface  only ;  for  he  applied  his 
whole  strength  in  attempting  to  fathom  the  inmost  recesses  of  things, 
and  to  connect  together  the  various  links  into  one  universal  chain, 
and  show  their  derivation  in  a  certain  order  from  their  first  origin. 
Neither  can  he  be  accused  by  any  one  of  having,  like  other  mathema- 
ticians and  physicists,  made  use  of  the  light  he  discovered  during  his  re- 
searches, to  hide  from  himself  and  others,  and,  if  possible,  to  extinguish 
the  greatest  light  of  all ;  for,  in  his  constant  meditations  on  the  work 
of  creation,  he  continually  found  reasons  for  acknowledging  and  ador- 
ing the  Lord  of  nature.  .  .  . 

"  I  am  perhaps  not  mistaken  in  believing  that,  from  the  time  when 
our  Swedenborg  began  to  build  his  thoughts  upon  his  own  ground,  he 
cherished  a  hidden  fire  to  fathom  the  most  secret  things,  and  that, 
even  then,  he  was  seeking  for  ways  by  which  to  reach  his  object ;  at 
least,  a  comparison  of  his  earlier  with  his  later  works,  although  they 
treat  on  different  subjects,  leads  us  to  think  so.  He  looked  upon  the 
universe  at  large  in  the  same  light  as  he  looked  upon  its  parts,  which 
can  be  examined  with  greater  certainty.  He  saw  that  all  is  ruled 
simultaneously  in  a  certain  order,  and  according  to  fixed  laws.  He 
paid  particular  attention  to  those  parts  of  this  great  system  which 
can  be  examined  mathematically.  He  therefore  imagined  that  the 
all-wise  Creator  had  brought  everything,  even  in  its  hidden  parts,  into 
a  certain  mutual  agreement,  and  this  agreement  he  sought  to  bring 
out  in  his  capacity  of  mathematician  and  physicist,  by  advancing 
from  the  less  to  the  greater,  and  from  that  which  may  be  distinguished 
by  the  naked  eye  to  that  which  requires  the  aid  of  the  magnifying 
glass.  And,  finally,  he  developed  for  himself  a  complete  system, 
based  upon  a  certain  mechanism,  and  supported  by  logic ;  a  system 
which  is  so  carefully  constructed  that  there  is  much  in  it,  in  many  re- 
spects, for  the  learned  to  reflect  upon.  As  to  the  unlettered,  they  had 
better  not  meddle  with  it.  ... 

"But  he  went  still  further.  He  desired  to  combine  this  system 
with  the  doctrine  of  salvation.  With  this  we  find  him  occupied 
during  most  of  the  time  after  he  had  published  his  Opera  Philosophica 
tt  Miner  alia. 

tf  I  cannot  help  being  filled  with  astonishment,  in  reflecting  upon  his 
extraordinary  industry;  for  besides  numerous  treatises,  and  among 
them  the  great  work  I  have  already  mentioned,  he  was  the  author  of 
the  following  works  [here  follows  a  list  of  Swedenborg's  anatomical 
and  theological  works]. 


408  HOME  LIFE. 

"The  titles  of  all  these  works  point  out  lofty  themes;  and  al- 
though they  treat  of  different  subjects,  and  follow  different  lines  of 
argument,  being  based  upon  anatomy,  physics,  and  philosophy,  upon 
explanations  of  the  Sacred  Scriptures  and,  according  to  his  own 
statement,  upon  revelations,  still,  owing  to  his  way  of  treating  them, 
they  all  lead  to  meditations  on  the  Supreme  Being,  the  human  soul, 
with  other  invisible  and  spiritual  things,  and  the  life  after  death.  .  .  . 

"  If  I  were  called  upon  frankly  to  state  his  faults,  I  should  imagine 
to  myself  some  one  who  devoted  his  whole  time  to  the  preparation  of 
a  universal  solvent, —  a  menstruum  which  would  solve  everything  that 
either  nature  or  art  had  produced,  without  remembering  that  no  vessel 
could  preserve  it.  Our  Swedenborg  was  not  satisfied  with  knowing 
much ;  he  desired  to  know  more  than  can  be  comprehended  by  any 
man  here  below,  in  that  state  of  imperfection  which  belongs  to  him 
while  the  soul  dwells  in  a  frail  material  body.  Any  one  who  con- 
demns this  jfault  cannot  be  regarded  as  impartial,  so  long  as  he  does 
not  first  inveigh  against  those  who  ought  to  know  much,  and  yet  who 
know  nothing.  But  it  is  not  so  easy  to  be  displeased  with  a  man 
who  was  endowed  with  so  many  fine  qualities. 

"  He  had  a  sincere  love  for  mankind ;  and,  in  examining  the  dis- 
position of  others,  he  always  endeavored  first  to  find  this  virtue,  as  a 
sure  indication  of  many  good  qualities  besides.  He  was  cheerful  and 
pleasant  in  company,  and,  as  a  recreation  from  his  severe  labors,  he 
enjoyed  intercourse  with  intelligent  persons,  by  whom  he  was  always 
well  received  and  much  respected.  He  could  also  properly  meet,  and 
playfully  direct  into  a  different  channel,  that  kind  of  curiosity  which 
frequently  desires  to  obtrude  itself  into  the  consideration  of  serious 
things.  .  .  .  Our  Swedenborg,  —  and  this  I  mention  not  as  one  of 
his  merits, —  remained  during  the  whole  of  his  life  unmarried.  But 
this  was  not  owing  to  any  indifference  to  the  sex,  for  he  esteemed 
the  company  of  a  fine  and  intelligent  woman  as  one  of  the  purest 
sources  of  delight ;  but  his  profound  studies  required  that  in  his 
house  there  should  be  perfect  stillness  both  day  and  night.  He  there- 
fore preferred  being  alone. 

"  He  enjoyed  a  most  excellent  state  of  bodily  health,  having  scarce- 
ly ever  been  indisposed ;  and,  as  he  was  always  content  within  him- 
self and  with  his  circumstances,  he  spent  a  life  which  was  in  every 
respect  happy,  nay,  which  was  happy  in  the  highest  degree.  At  last 
nature  demanded  her  rights.  During  his  last  sojourn  abroad,  while 
residing  in  London,  he  had  on  December  24th  of  last  year,  an  attack 
of  apoplexy,  and  on  the  29th  of  last  March  departed  this  life,  in  his 
eighty-fifth  year,  rich  in  the  honorable  monuments  which  he  left  be- 
hind him,  satisfied  with  his  life  upon  earth,  and  joyful  at  the  prospect 
of  his  final  change." 


HAPPINESS. 


409 


Let  us  take  for  our  last  look  at  the  lonely  old  man  his  own 
pictures  of  happiness.  In  his  philosophical  argument  on  the 
Infinite  he  had  said, — 

"  Inasmuch  as  the  soul  is  formed  and  prepared  in  the 
mortal  body  for  an  immortal  state,  so  we  men  are  in  this 
respect  the  happiest  beings  in  the  world,  or  else  the  un- 
happiest;  for  those  who  are  unhappy,  are  more  unhappy 
than  the  brutes,  whose  souls  are  extinguished,  and  their  life 
annihilated,  when  they  perish.  Christians  again  may  be  still 
more  happy,  or  still  more  unhappy ;  for  they  possess  a  knowl- 
edge well  calculated  to  lead  to  faith,  and  to  comparative 
distinctness  and  fulness  thereof :  yet  those  of  them  who  are 
unhappy,  are  more  unhappy  than  the  Gentiles  to  whom  no 
such  knowledge  has  been  granted.  Those  Christians  again 
who  are  learned  in  the  Divine  law,  the  prelates  and  doctors 
of  the  Church,  are  still  more  happy,  or  unhappy ;  for  those 
of  them  who  are  unhappy,  are  more  unhappy  than  the  rudest 
members  of  the  Christian  commonalty,  however  defective  in 
learning  and  poor  in  knowledge  and  enlightenment.  Among 
the  skilful  interpreters  of  the  Divine  law,  they  again  are  hap- 
pier still  who  have  the  faculty  to  engraft  reason  upon  reve- 
lation, and  to  make  use  of  both  as  means  to  a  knowledge  of 
the  things  conducing  to  faith  ;  that  is  to  say,  they  who  are 
Christian  philosophers,  who,  if  unhappy,  are  more  unhappy 
than  those  who  have  obtained  their  knowledge  from  revela- 
lation  alone.  For,  the  more  knowledge  we  possess,  the 
more  there  is  to  make  us  happy,  and  the  more  to  make  us 
unhappy.  Hence  the  Christian  philosopher  may  be  the  hap- 
piest or  the  unhappiest  of  mortals"  (p.  149). 

Again,  after  his  spiritual  experience  had  been  opened  to 
him  for  some  years,  he  wrote, — 

"  Some  think  that  he  who  is  in  faith  must  put  away  all  en- 
joyments of  life  and  pleasures  of  the  body ;  but  this  I  can 
testify,  that  by  no  means  have  there  been  denied  to  me,  but 
have  been  granted,  not  only  the  pleasures  of  the  body  and  of 
the  senses,  such  as  are  granted  to  other  mortals,  but  also  en- 


4IO  HOME  LIFE. 

joyments  of  life  and  happiness  such  as,  I  think,  have  been 
given  to  no  others  in  the  whole  world, —  greater  and  more 
exquisite  than  any  mortal  can  imagine,  or  in  any  way  be- 
lieve." (S.  D.  3623). 

Would  we  inquire  further  what  this  happiness  might  be,  we 
may  turn  back  to  what  we  have  read  of  the  peace  of  the 
Benediction.1  We  may  read  what  he  says  of  the  sweetness 
of  the  heavenly  perception  that  one  does  not  think  from  him- 
self. "  It  was  suddenly  given  me  to  perceive  the  sweetness 
of  the  angels  which  they  perceive  from  this,  that  they  do 
not  think  from  themselves,  and  consequently  do  not  speak 
and  act  from  themselves ;  for,  from  this  is  quiet  and  con- 
fidence, and  very  many  enjoyments  therefrom."  (S.  D. 
2870). 

What,  then,  must  have  been  the  sweetness,  the  quiet,  the 
confidence,  and  the  happiness  of  him  who  was  permitted  for 
near  thirty  years  to  perceive  that  he  thought  and  wrote,  not 
from  himself,  but  from  the  Lord !  What  is  this  but  a  fore- 
running fulfilment  of  that  coming  of  the  Lord  described  in 
John  as  the  coming  of  the  Comforter,  even  the  Spirit  of 
Truth,  which  should  guide  into  all  truth  ? 

Let  it  be  granted  that  this  prophecy  was  for  the  whole 
Church,  and,  in  addition  to  its  first  miraculous  but  temporary 
fulfilment  with  the  Apostles,  is  to  have  a  final  permanent  ful- 
filment. Let  it  be  granted  that  the  prophecy  of  the  coming 
in  judgment  in  the  clouds  of  heaven  is  also  a  spiritual  com- 
ing, and  may  be  expected  at  the  same  time.  Swedenborg's 
explanation  follows,  that  the  one  is  the  consequence  of  the 
other ;  that  the  admission  of  the  Lord,  by  His  Holy  Spirit, 
into  the  heart,  throws  that  flood  of  light  into  the  understand- 
ing by  which  He  stands  revealed,  even  in  the  clouds  of  the 
letter  of  His  Word,  and  perforce  executes  a  judgment  on 
whatever  stands  in  His  Presence. 

This  seen  to  be  the  truth,  it  remains  to  read  with  patience 
and  heavenly  desire  what  Swedenborg  has  written,  from  his 
1  Page  237. 


TUXEN.  41 1 

illustration,  in  explanation  of  this  Word,  and  to  see  whether 
or  no  this  explanation  shines  with  Divine  light  in  our  own 
minds.  If  so,  we  know  well  whence  it  comes.  And  if  not, 
let  us  not  judge  hastily,  let  us  wait ;  perchance  the  fault  is 
yet  our  own.  New  ideas,  especially  ideas  involving  a  new 
world  within  and  above  that  to  which  we  are  accustomed,  are 
not  presumably  to  be  received  at  first  glance,  or  without 
deep  thought  and  elevation  of  mind.  Herein  lies  the  test. 
Only  in  our  highest,  most  interior  state,  when  nearest  in 
heart  to  God  and  His  heaven,  should  we  undertake  to  con- 
clude concerning  what  professes  to  come  from  Him,  and 
then  only  by  comparison  with  His  Word.  Conclusions  then 
formed,  and  then  alone,  may  be  trusted.  Many  readers,  too, 
will  sympathize  with  these  words  of  Swedenborg's  friend, 
General  Tuxen :  — 

"  I  confess  that  when  I  first  began  to  read  his  works  and 
just  cast  my  eye  on  the  following  passage,  that  '  a  horse  sig- 
nifies the  understanding  of  the  Word,'  I  found  myself,  as  it 
were,  repelled  and  not  very  well  pleased ;  but  afterwards, 
when  I  read  his  works  in  series  from  the  beginning,  and  with 
attention,  though  I  found  many  things  which  surpassed  my 
understanding  and  knowledge,  yet  happily  I  recollected  at 
the  same  time  the  answer  of  Socrates  to  the  other  Athenian 
philosophers,  who  asked  his  opinion  on  the  writings  of  He- 
raclitus, —  That  he  did  not  understand  them  everywhere,  but 
what  he  did  understand  was  so  excellent  and  good,  that  he 
did  not  doubt  but  the  rest,  which  he  understood  not,  was 
equally  so.  This  encouraged  me  to  read  more  and  more, 
and  what  I  understood  I  found  for  my  advantage;  and  it 
appears  to  me  that  no  system  of  divinity  is  more  worthy  of 
the  dignity  of  God,  or  more  consolatory  to  man." 

Some,  though  finding  the  doctrines  set  forth  by  Sweden- 
borg  eminently  rational,  find  great  difficulty  in  believing  that 
his  spiritual  sight  could  be  opened  while  he  yet  remained  in 
this  world.  Such,  probably,  have  not  become  familiar  with 
the  idea,  old  as  the  world,  but  for  a  time  well-nigh  lost,  that 


412  HOME  LIFE. 

the  spirit-world  is  all  around  us  and  very  near,  and  that  the 
passage  into  it  is  but  the  opening  of  a  door.  Let  them,  for 
encouragement,  call  to  mind  the  good  old  story  of  our 
heathen  ancestors :  — 

"In  the  year  626  of  our  era,  when  Edwin,  the  Anglo-Saxon  king, 
was  deliberating  on  receiving  the  Christian  missionaries,  one  of  his 
nobles  said  to  him :  '  The  present  life  of  man,  O  King,  compared  with 
that  space  of  time  beyond,  of  which  we  have  no  certainty,  reminds 
me  of  one  of  your  winter  feasts,  where  you  sit  with  your  generals  and 
your  ministers.  The  hearth  blazes  in  the  middle,  and  a  grateful  heat 
is  spread  around,  while  storms  of  rain  and  snow  are  raging  without. 
Driven  by  the  chilling  tempest,  a  little  sparrow  enters  at  one  door, 
and  flies  delighted  around  us  till  it  departs  through  the  other.  Whilst 
it  stays  in  our  mansion,  it  feels  not  the  winter  storm ;  but  when  this 
short  moment  of  happiness  has  been  enjoyed,  it  is  forced  again  into 
the  same  dreary  tempest  from  which  it  had  escaped,  and  we  behold  it 
no  more.  Such  is  the  life  of  man,  and  we  are  as  ignorant  of  the  state 
which  preceded  our  present  existence  as  of  that  which  will  follow 
it.  Things  being  so,  I  feel  that  if  this  new  faith  can  give  us  more 
certainty,  it  deserves  to  be  received." 

Mr.  Emerson,  who  fitly  quotes  the  above  at  the  opening 
of  his  Essay  on  Immortality,  observes  a  marked  change  of 
current  sentiment  in  regard  to  the  other  life  during  this  cen- 
tury, which  he  attributes  to  the  influence  of  Swedenborg's 
teachings.  Mr.  Coleridge  wrote,  in  April,  1827, — 

"  I  have  often  thought  of  writing  a  work  to  be  entitled  .  .  .  '  Vin- 
dication of  Great  Men  unjustly  branded;'  and  at  such  times  the 
names  prominent  to  my  mind's  eye  have  been  Giordano  Bruno,  Jacob 
Bohme,  Benedict  Spinoza,  and  Emanuel  Swedenborg.  Grant,  that  the 
origin  of  the  Swedenborgian  theology  is  a  problem  ;  yet,  on  which- 
ever of  the  three  possible  hypotheses  (possible,  I  mean,  for  gentle- 
men, scholars,  and  Christians)1  it  maybe  solved, —  namely:  I.  Swe- 

1  "  Si,  dans  les  generations  contemporaines  et  Epigones,  il  ne  s'est  pas 
trouve*  une  voix  se"rieuse  qui  eut  voulu  se  compromettre,  en  osant  accuser  de 
tromperie  un  homme  dont  1'honnetcte  e*tait  6vidente  et  le  sens  inattaquable, 
comment  aurait-on  ce  courage  aujourd'hui  ? "  [MATTER:  p.  70.]  Matter 
cites  the  familiar  visions  of  Descartes,  Antoinette  Bourignon,  Madame  Guyon, 
and  other  mystics,  as  preparing  the  way  for  belief  in  Swedenborg's  spiritual 
sight.  It  was  a  time  for  signs  and  visions,  when  the  power  of  light  and  the 
power  of  darkness  were  contending  for  the  control  of  mankind. 


COLERIDGE.  413 

denborg's  own  assertion  and  constant  belief  in  the  hypothesis  of  a 
supernatural  illumination;  or,  2.  That  the  great  and  excellent  man 
was  led  into  this  belief  by  becoming  the  subject  of  a  very  rare,  but 
not  (it  is  said)  altogether  unique,  conjunction  of  the  somniative  faculty 
(by  which  the  products  of  the  understanding,  that  is  to  say,  words, 
conceptions,  and  the  like,  are  rendered  instantaneously  into  forms  of 
sense)  with  the  voluntary  and  other  powers  of  the  waking  state ;  or,  3. 
The  modest  suggestion  that  the  first  and  the  second  may  not  be  so  in- 
compatible as  they  appear, —  still  it  ought  never  to  be  forgotten  that 
the  merit  and  value  of  Swedenborg's  system  do  only  in  a  very  second- 
ary degree  depend  on  any  one  of  the  three.  For,  even  though  the 
first  were  not  adopted,  the  conviction  and  conversion  of  such  a  believer 
must,  according  to  a  fundamental  principle  of  the  New  Church,  have 
been  wrought  by  an  insight  into  the  intrinsic  truth  and  goodness  of 
the  doctrines,  severally  and  collectively,  and  their  entire  consonance 
with  the  light  of  the  written  and  of  the  eternal  Word,  that  is,  with  the 
Scriptures  and  with  the  sciential  and  the  practical  reason.  Or  say 
that  the  secret  hypothesis  were  preferred,  and  that  by  some  hitherto 
unexplained  affection  of  Swedenborg's  brain  and  nervous  system,  he 
from  the  year  1745  thought  and  reasoned  through  the  medium  and  in- 
strumentality of  a  series  of  appropriate  and  symbolic  visual  and 
auditual  images,  spontaneously  rising  before  him,  and  these  so  clear 
and  distinct  as  at  length  to  overpower,  perhaps,  his  first  suspicions  of 
their  subjective  nature,  and  to  become  objective  for  him,  that  is,  in 
his  own  belief  of  their  kind  and  origin, —  still  the  thoughts,  the  rea- 
sonings, the  grounds,  the  deductions,  the  facts  illustrative,  or  in  proof, 
and  the  conclusions,  remain  the  same ;  and  the  reader  might  derive 
the  same  benefit  from  them  as  from  the  sublime  and  impressive  truths 
conveyed  in  the  Vision  of  Mirza  or  the  Tablet  of  Cebes.  So  much 
even  from  a  very  partial  acquaintance  with  the  works  of  Swedenborg, 
I  can  venture  to  assert, —  that  as  a  naturalist,  psychologist,  and  theo- 
logian, he  has  strong  and  varied  claims  on  the  gratitude  and  admir- 
ation of  the  professional  and  philosophical  student." l 

To  most  readers  of  Swedenborg  the  simplest  way,  by  far, 
is  to  believe  that  Swedenborg  saw  just  what  he  thought  he 
did,  with  the  eyes  that  were  surely  to  be  opened  a  few  years 
later,  and  might,  for  the  Lord's  good  purpose,  be  opened  be- 
fore those  of  the  body  were  closed.  But  for  those  persons 
to  whom  this  seems  too  miraculous  for  belief,  we  give  Mr. 
Coleridge's  alternative,  earnest  that  none  should  be  precluded 

1  S.  T.  COLERIDGE  :  Literary  Remains,  p.  422. 


414  HOME  LIFE. 

by  the  visions  from  gaining  what  good  they  can  from  the 
doctrines  and  interpretations  of  Scripture.  At  all  events  it 
may  be  said  to  them  in  the  words  of  Matter, — 

"  The  greatness  of  Socrates  remains,  whether  his  daemon  be  a  poetic 
fiction  or  a  hallucination.  It  is  the  same  with  Swedenborg.  His 
greatness, —  I  mean  his  thought, —  remains,  whether  his  character  as 
medium  chosen  of  God  to  serve  as  an  organ  and  interpreter  of  the 
Word  of  God  with  men,  be  a  pious  fiction,  or  the  most  sincere  illusion, 
[or,  let  us  add,  the  very  truth].  His  doctrine,  so  completely  set  forth 
in  his  writings,  has  its  value  in  itself ;  independent  of  the  visions  cited 
in  its  support,  it  is  given  in  the  sacred  texts  therein  contained.  Every 
man  of  sense  may  do  what  Count  Hopken  did, —  take  the  doctrine,  and 
let  alone  the  visions.  The  true  question  for  everybody  is  this  :  has 
Swedenborg  interpreted  the  Holy  Scriptures  better  than  the  eighteen 
centuries  which  preceded  him  ?  The  affirmative  would  not  prove  the 
mission  which  he  claims,  but  it  would  be  a  great  prepossession  in  its 
favor.  The  negative  destroys  his  mission,  but  it  leaves  intact  his 
doctrine  and  his  work."  1 

In  our  study  of  Emanuel  Swedenborg  we  have  found  such 
penetration  and  training  of  mind,  such  industry  and  devotion 
to  truth,  such  store  of  wisdom,  such  integrity  of  character, 
such  piety  and  benevolence  of  heart,  such  spirituality  and 
humility  towards  God,  that  we  may  ask  whether,  if  the  Lord 
needed  a  man  through  whom  to  make  known  the  mysteries 
of  His  Word  and  of  His  kingdom,  He  ever  made  one  more 
fit  for  the  purpose.  We  have  seen  that  the  amount  and 
scope  of  these  revelations  through  Swedenborg  are  fairly  com- 
mensurate with  their  subject.  By  specimens,  we  have  seen 
that  in  elevation  and  dignity  they  are  not  unworthy  of  it. 
And  we  have  seen  that  for  thirty  years  their  author,  while 
he  found  but  few  humble  souls  fully  prepared  to  appreciate 
and  accept  the  new  doctrines  he  was  bringing  down  out  of 
heaven,  yet  found  none  to  gainsay  them  in  his  presence ; 
but,  wherever  he  went,  among  the  learned  or  the  unlettered, 
in  humble  tenement  or  in  kings'  courts,  all  hung  upon  his 
lips,  in  silent  reverence  at  the  strange  mysteries  that  fell  from 
them,  or  rejoiced  in  heart  by  their  kindly  cheer.  As  in 
1  M.  MATTER  :  Swedenborg,  sa  vie,  etc.,  p.  73. 


EFFECTS   OF   MISSION. 


415 


his  infancy,  so  again  in  his  age,  it  was  perceived  that  angels 
spake  with  him  and  through  him  to  men.  It  may  in  part 
reconcile  us  of  English-speaking  race  to  the  strangeness  of 
revelations  coming  to  us  through  Scandinavian  stock,1  that 
communication  from  the  other  world  was  not  so  strange  to 
the  men  of  Sweden  as  to  those  of  busy  London,  and  that, 
as  Danieli  says,  there  was  in  the  family  a  tendency  to  re- 
ceiving strange  thoughts,  not  their  own.  Yet  in  the  religious 
freedom  of  England  Swedenborg  found  the  best  soil  for 
planting  his  heaven-fetched  seed,  the  Doctrines  of  the  New 
Jerusalem ;  and  in  Great  Britain  and  America  the  seed  has 
as  yet  taken  deepest  root  and  borne  the  most  fruit. 

Not  however  by  numbers  of  professed  adherents,  at  the 
present  or  at  any  time,  is  the  magnitude  of  the  work  effected 
through  Swedenborg  to  be  measured.  This  work  was  but  a 
part,  inseparable  and  indispensable,  of  the  vast  work  of  over- 
coming and  dispersing  the  power  of  Babylon  and  of  the 
Dragon,  of  freeing  the  souls  of  men  here  and  in  the  world 
of  spirits,  of  again  restoring  order  in  the  spirit-world  as  it 
was  restored  at  our  Lord's  first  coming,  and  of  causing  Him- 
self again  to  be  present  with  men,  visible  in  His  Word,  felt 
at  the  door  of  the  heart,  and  everywhere  recognized  in  His 
Providence.  As  this  work  goes  on, —  and  who  cannot  see 
that  it  has  been  for  a  century  begun?  —  it  may  be  difficult  to 
take  the  full  measure  of  Swedenborg's  instrumentality.  Nor 
is  this  a  matter  of  great  importance.2  It  is  sufficient  that  we 
recognize  in  his  works  the  help  given  us  by  the  Lord  to  take 
our  part  in  the  labor,  and  to  receive  our  share  of  the  blessing. 
Everywhere  let  us  seek  to  see  the  promised  coming  of  our 
Lord  in  His  nearer  Presence  with  our  fellow-men,  in  their 
fuller  recognition  of  Him  in  His  Word  and  in  their  hearts, 
whether  or  not  they  are  conscious  of  the  help  that  has  been 

1  Sweden  was  early  the  stronghold  of  Protestantism.  "  Soon  after  (1630) 
Gustavus  Adolphus  crossed  the  Baltic,  and  saved  Europe  from  an  impending 
reign  of  the  Jesuits.  .  .  .  The  rescue  of  Germany  was  the  work  of  the  Swedish 
King."  BRYCK  :  Holy  Roman  Empire,  p.  336.  2  Appendix  XII. 


416  HOME  LIFE. 

given  to  this  freedom  and  clearness  of  the  spiritual  atmos- 
phere by  the  enlightenment  from  the  Lord  of  the  mind  of 
EMANUEL  SWEDENBORG. 

We  prefaced  our  book  with  referring  to  the  increasing  re- 
cognition, among  Christian  students,  of  Swedenborg  as  a 
pioneer  of  the  advanced  theology  fast  finding  its  way  into  the 
thought  of  the  Churches.  We  have  endeavored  to  aid  this 
recognition  to  take  another  step,  and  to  acknowledge  all  that 
has  come  through  Swedenborg  as  coming,  not  from  the  man, 
but  through  him  from  the  Lord  Jesus,  in  His  new  coming  to 
His  people. 

In  conclusion,  let  us  take  in  this  sense,  giving  God  the 
praise,  such  acknowledgments  as  the  following,  now  thick- 
ening about  us  :  — 

"  While  Wesley  was  made  the  mediator  of  a  new  moral 
force  flowing  out  of  Christianity,  Emanuel  Swedenborg  be- 
came the  organ  of  a  new  spiritual  philosophy,  the  power  of 
which  is  hardly  yet  understood,  but  which  seems  likely  to 
leaven  all  religious  thought,  and  change  all  arbitrary  theolo- 
gies into  a  spiritual  rationalism.  But  Swedenborg  did  not  go 
out  of  Christianity  to  find  his  ideas.  Like  George  Fox  and 
John  Wesley,  he  found  them  in  Christ."  *• 

"The  most  remarkable  step  in  the  religious  history  of  re- 
cent ages  is  that  made  by  the  genius  of  Swedenborg.  .  .  . 
These  truths,  passing  out  of  his  system  into  general  circulation, 
are  now  met  with  every  day,  qualifying  the  views  and  creeds 
of  all  churches,  and  of  men  of  no  church."2 

"  Swedenborgianism  has  done  the  liberating  work  of  the 
last  century.  ...  The  wave  Swedenborg  started  lasts  to  this 
day.  .  .  .  The  statements  of  Swedenborg's  religious  works 
have  revolutionized  theology."  3 

1  Rev.  James  Freeman  Clarke. 

2  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 

3  Rev.  E.  E.  Hale,  in  a  recent  lecture. 


APPENDIX. 


APPENDIX. 


I.  — PAGE  i. 

THE  famous  Bull  Unigenitus  was  issued  at  the  instigation  of 
the  Jesuits.  As  a  means  for  its  enforcement,  the  Jesuit  clergy  in 
France  resolved  that  notes  should  be  obtained  of  dying  persons, 
that  these  notes  should  be  signed  by  priests  who  maintained  the 
authority  of  the  Bull,  and  that  without  such  notes  no  person 
should  receive  the  last  sacraments  of  the  Church.  Among  other 
things  this  Bull  denounced  as  false,  blasphemous,  heretical,  and 
reprobate  the  following  propositions,  which  had  been  published 
by  Father  Quesnel,  a  Jansenist,  with  his  New  Testament:  — 

"That  it  is  useful  and  necessary  for  all  persons  to  know  the 
Scriptures. 

"That  the  reading  of  the  Scriptures  is  for  everybody. 

"That  the  sacred  obscurity  of  the  Word  of  God  is  no  reason 
for  the  laity  to  excuse  themselves  from  reading  it. 

"That  the  Lord's  day  ought  to  be  sanctified  by  Christians,  in 
reading  pious  books  and,  above  all,  the  Scriptures. 

"That  it  is  a  great  mistake  to  imagine  that  the  knowledge  of 
the  mysteries  of  religion  ought  not  to  be  imparted  to  women,  by 
the  reading  of  the  Sacred  Books. 

"That  to  wrest  the  New  Testament  out  of  the  hands  of  Chris- 
tians, is  to  keep  it  closed  up,  by  taking  from  them  the  means  of 
understanding  it, — is  no  other  than  to  close  up  the  mouth  of 
Christ  as  to  them. 

"That  to  forbid  to  Christians  the  reading  of  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures, especially  of  the  Gospel,  is  no  other  than  to  forbid  the  use 
of  light  to  the  children  of  light. 

"That  to  deprive  the  unlearned  people  of  the  comfort  of  join- 
ing their  voices  with  the  voice  of  the  whole  Church,  is  a  custom 
contrary  to  apostolical  practice  and  to  the  design  of  God." 


42O 


APPENDIX. 


II.  — PAGE  i. 

MADEMOISELLE  BOURIGNON,  born  and  bred  a  Roman  Catho- 
lic in  the  i7th  century,  was  keenly  alive  to  the  state  of  the 
Church.  In  The  Light  of  the  World,  published  in  England  in 
1696,  and  giving  a  report  of  her  conversations,  it  is  said:  — 

"  I  asked  her  if  she  firmly  believed  that  the  last  times  were 
come ;  and  whether  the  judgment  approached. 

"  She  said  to  me :  Believe  me,  Sir,  there  is  nothing  more  true  ; 
we  actually  live  in  the  last  times ;  and  the  judgment  is  so  near, 
that  before  three  years  I  believe  you  will  see  the  effects  of  it. 
.  .  .  We  may  see  by  the  lives  of  men  now,  that  all  the  signs 
are  fallen  out  which  Jesus  Christ  has  foretold,  namely,  that  iniqui- 
ty shall  be  multiplied,  and  charity  in  many  shall  wax  cold,  and  so 
of  the  rest.  .  .  .  The  life  of  men  is  the  open  book  in  which  these 
truths  are  written,  and  the  Holy  Scriptures  are  the  equitable 
Judge  which  pronounces  the  sentence.  Read,  Sir,  with  atten- 
tion, they  will  deliver  you  from  the  difficulty  you  find  in  believ- 
ing this  ;  for  though  indeed  they  do  not  determine  precisely  the 
day  of  judgment,  yet  they  will  make  you  see  sufficiently  that  the 
chief  signs  which  must  precede  it  do  already  appear.  .  .  .  Truth, 
which  is  the  true  Sun  of  Righteousness,  cannot  any  longer  ap- 
pear openly ;  it  is  become  black  and  hateful  to  all  the  world,  who, 
desiring  to  be  flattered  and  praised,  cannot  hear  the  truth,  be- 
cause it  reproves  the  falsehood  which  now  prevails.  ...  I 
entreat  you  to  read  attentively  the  24th  chapter  of  St.  Matthew ; 
it  speaks  of  the  present  time.  All  the  Parables  do  the  same.  I 
wish  I  had  time  and  leisure  to  explain  them  to  you  ;  you  would 
see  as  well  as  I  that  the  judgment  approaches,  for  all  the  fore- 
running signs  are  already  come.  People  do  not  perceive  them, 
for  want  of  reflecting  seriously  enough  on  the  Holy  Scriptures, 
or  upon  the  inward  life  of  men  now-a-days :  they  amuse  them- 
selves with  regarding  only  their  outward  piety,  imagining  that 
there  are  yet  a  great  many  good  men,  because  they  appear  such; 
but  before  God  all  are  corrupted.  .  .  .  Many  souls  will  be  de- 
ceived at  death,  who  in  their  lifetime  presumed  they  were  true 
Christians,  while  in  the  sight  of  God  they  will  be  worse  than 
heathens.  Such  is  the  blindness  wherein  we  live  at  present,  in 
which  nobody  makes  a  right  judgment  of  himself,  or  of  others, 
every  one  presuming  to  be  saved  without  good  works ;  whereas 


APPENDIX.  42 1 

no  works  can  be  good  if  they  do  not  proceed  from  charity, 
which  is  at  present  banished  from  the  hearts  of  all  men;  for 
which  cause  there  are  no  more  perfect  Christians  upon  earth,  for 
the  Christian  life  is  all  charity,  and  the  love  of  God,  which  is  no 
longer  in  use.  .  .  .  There  has  been  no  longer  charity  upon 
earth,  Sir,  since  Christians  left  the  Gospel  simplicity ;  from  that 
time  charity  began  to  wax  cold ;  and  when  the  Church  would 
needs  establish  herself  in  pomp,  riches,  and  magnificence,  this 
outward  splendor  has  utterly  destroyed  the  spirit  of  the  Gospel. 
Studies  have  banished  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  the  learning  of  men 
has  stifled  the  wisdom  of  God"  (p.  19). 

Father  Lambert,  a  Jansenist,  wrote  somewhat  later, — 
"  In  examining  with  a  good  faith  the  different  characteristics 
which,  in  the  Apocalypse,  the  woman  who  is  a  harlot  presents,  it 
is  very  difficult  not  to  recognize  under  this  emblem  the  city  of 
ROME.  .  .  .  There  is  then  every  reason  to  believe  that  the  holy 
Apostle,  in  casting  his  eyes  forward  to  the  future,  which  was 
still  separated  from  him  by  an  interval  of  so  many  ages,  shows 
us  a  CHRISTIAN  city;  but  which  will  then  be  depraved,  cor- 
rupted, laden  with  iniquities,  making  religion  subservient  to  her 
pride,  her  domination,  her  avarice ;  and  which  will  merit  from 
God  the  outpouring  upon  her  of  the  cup  of  His  wrath."1 

In  illustration  of  the  proud  domination  here  referred  to,  wit- 
ness the  declarations  by  Leo  the  Great  that  he  possessed,  as  the 
Head  of  the  Church  and  by  participation,  the  power  of  Christ, 
and  that  as  such  he  was  the  head  of  a  Church  whose  top 
reached  unto  heaven ;  by  Count  de  Maistre,  that  the  Sovereign 
Pontiff  is  "the  necessary,  the  only,  the  exclusive  basis  of  Chris- 
tianity;" by  Cornelius  a  Lapide,  that  "the  Pope,  as  being  the 
vicar  of  God,  represents  God;"  by  Dionysius,  that  the  One  seen 
by  John  sitting  on  the  throne  (Rev.  iv.)  is  the  Pope;  by  Alca- 
sar,  that  "the  Pope  as  the  vicar  of  Christ  is  in  a  manner  Christ 
Himself,"  and  that  "  the  priests  of  the  Church  have  a  power 
more  sublime  than  the  very  seraphim  themselves,  and  one  which 
is  especially  proper  to  God; "  by  St.  Bernard,  that  their  order  is 
"preferred  before  angels, archangels,  thrones,  and  dominations;" 
and  by  the  Rhemish  Testament,  "  The  Father  gave  all  power  to 
the  Son;  but  I  see  the  same  power  altogether  delivered  by  the 
Son  unto  them" — the  priests. 

1  Exposition  of  the  Prophecies  and  Promises  made  to  the  Church,  ii.  327. 


422  APPENDIX. 


III.  — PAGE  7. 

DR.  WATTS  had  said,  in  his  treatise  on  the  Improvement  of 
the  Mind,— 

"Nor  should  a  student  in  Divinity  imagine  that  our  age  is 
arrived  at  a  full  understanding  of  everything  which  can  be 
known  by  the  Scriptures.  Every  age  since  the  Reformation 
hath  thrown  some  further  light  on  difficult  texts  and  paragraphs 
of  the  Bible,  which  have  been  long  obscured  by  the  early  rise 
of  Antichrist ;  and  since  there  are  at  present  many  difficulties 
and  darknesses  hanging  about  certain  truths  of  the  Christian 
religion  ;  and  since  several  of  these  relate  to  important  doc- 
trines, such  as  the  origin  of  sin.  the  fall  of  Adam,  the  Person  of 
Christ,  the  blessed  Trinity,  the  decrees  of  God,  etc.,  which  do 
still  embarrass  the  minds  of  honest  and  inquiring  readers,  and 
which  make  work  for  noisy  controversy, —  it  is  certain  there  are 
several  things  in  the  Bible  yet  unknown,  and  not  sufficiently 
explained;  and  it  is  certain  there  is  some  way  to  solve  these 
difficulties,  and  to  reconcile  these  seeming  contradictions.  And 
why  may  not  a  sincere  searcher  of  truth,  in  the  present  age,  by 
labor,  diligence,  study,  and  prayer,  with  the  best  use  of  his  rea- 
soning powers,  find  out  the  proper  solution  of  these  knots  and 
perplexities,  which  have  hitherto  been  unsolved,  and  which  have 
afforded  matter  for  angry  quarrelling?  Happy  is  the  man  who 
shall  be  favored  of  Heaven  to  give  a  helping  hand  towards  the 
introduction  of  the  blessed  age  of  light  and  love." 

In  what  manner  Swedenborg  was  thus  favored,  the  body  of 
this  book  should  show.  But  independently  of  his  labors,  and  in 
wholly  different  manner,  other  men  have  been  at  work,  and  have 
been  favored,  from  the  time  of  Bengel  till  now. 

Philip  Matthias  Hahn  (died  1790)  said,  "I  regard  this  the 
true  spirit  of  Christianity, — when  every  word  of  God  in  the 
Old  and  in  the  New  Testament  is  sweet,  important,  and  dear ; 
and  when  we  find  therein  no  favorite  truths,  but  everything  is 
good  and  agreeable  to  us,  because  it  is  connected  with  the  rest." 

Johann  Gottfried  von  Herder  (died  1803)  said,  "It  is  certainly 
a  fine  thread  which  pervades  the  Old  and  New  Testaments, 
especially  in  those  passages  where  symbol  and  fact,  history  and 
poetry,  mingle  together.  Rough  hands  can  seldom  follow  it, 
much  less  unravel  it,  without  breaking  or  tangling  it,  or  without 


OF 


APPENDIX.  423 

injuring  either  the  poetry  or  history  which,  knitting  themselves 
into  it,  constitute  it  a  complete  unity.  It  is  truly  said,  'To  ex- 
plain belongs  to  God,'  or  to  that  man  on  whom  there  rests  the 
spirit  of  the  gods,  the  genius  of  all  ages,  and,  so  to  speak,  the 
childhood  of  the  human  race." 

And  again,  "  In  order  to  be  assisted,  the  revelation  of  God,  as 
found  in  the  Bible,  and  even  in  the  entire  history  of  the  human 
race,  must  be  believed,  and  thus  ever  return  to  the  great  centre 
about  which  everything  revolves  and  clusters  —  Jesus  Christ,  the 
Corner-stone  and  inheritance,  the  greatest  messenger,  teacher, 
and  person  of  the  Archetype." 

Hagenbach  says,  "  The  study  of  the  Bible  in  the  last  decades 
has  gained  not  only  in  impartiality,  but  in  freshness  and  interest. 
How  very  different  are  a  Pauline  epistle  and  the  Gospel  of  John 
now  explained  at  the  universities  from  what  they  were  a  quarter 
of  a  century  ago  ?  .  .  .  There  is  no  more  a  disposition  to  explain 
meagrely  the  written  letter,  but  to  penetrate  the  inmost  depths 
of  the  Biblical  writer's  soul  and  by  them  to  understand  him." 

Dr.  Dorner  says,  "The  extension  of  vision  in  modern  theolo- 
gy to  the  entire  history  and  philosophy  of  religion,  has  already 
produced  not  only  new  problems,  but  brilliant  and  fruitful  re- 
sults, profitable  not  only  to  the  theology  of  the  New  Testament, 
but  also  to  the  elucidation  and  confirmation  of  Christianity  itself. 
.  .  .  The  entire  Old  Testament  and  its  religion  is  beginning  to 
be  treated  ...  as  one  great  prophecy,  a  rich  compensation  for 
those  individual  prophecies  which  had  to  be  given  up  as  exegeti- 
cally  untenable."1 

The  Rev.  Andrew  Jukes  says,  "The  types  of  Genesis  fore- 
shadow God's  great  dispensational  purposes  respecting  man's 
development;  showing  in  mystery  His  secret  will  and  way  re- 
specting the  different  successive  dispensations.  The  types  of 
Exodus  bring  out,  as  their  characteristic,  redemption  and  its  con- 
sequences ;  a  chosen  people  are  here  redeemed  out  of  bondage, 
and  brought  into  a  place  of  nearness  to  God.  Leviticus  again 
differs  from  each  of  these,  dealing,  I  think  I  may  say  solely, 
in  types  connected  with  access  to  God.  Numbers  and  Joshua 
are  again  perfectly  different,  the  one  giving  us  types  connected 
with  our  pilgrimage  as  in  the  wilderness ;  the  other,  types  of  our 
place  as  over  Jordan, —  that  is,  as  dead  and  risen  with  Christ."  • 

1  History  of  Protestant  Theology,  ii.  443. 


424 


APPENDIX. 


And  further,  speaking  of  the  types  of  Leviticus,  — "Though 
Christ  in  His  work  is  the  sum  and  substance  of  these  types,  it  is 
Christ  as  discerned  by  one  who  already  knows  the  certainty  of 
redemption;  it  is  Christ  as  seen  by  one  who,  possessing  peace 
with  God  and  deliverance,  is  able  to  look  with  joy  at  all  that 
Christ  has  so  fully  been  for  him.  .  .  .  Exodus  gives  us  the  blood 
of  the  Lamb,  saving  Israel  in  the  land  of  Egypt.  Leviticus 
gives  us  the  priest  and  the  offerings,  meeting  Israel's  need  in 
their  access  to  Jehovah."  1 

IV.  — PAGE;. 

FICHTE,  first  after  Swedenborg,  sought  a  philosophic  reason 
for  the  Incarnation:  — 

"Mankind  is  by  the  exertion  of  its  freedom  to  destroy  an  an- 
tagonistic condition,  and  to  form  itself  into  a  kingdom  of  God, 
into  a  world  in  which  God  alone  is  the  principle  of  all  activity, 
and  in  which  nothing  is  done  without  Him  from  whom  all  human 
freedom  proceeds,  and  to  whom  it  is  surrendered.  This  must 
indeed  take  place  in  detail  through  each  individual,  and  that 
power  of  freedom  which  determines  him.  But  for  this  purpose 
there  was  needed  an  example  of  this  determination  to  self-immo- 
lation and  self-surrender.  Whence  was  mankind  to  have  this  ? 
//  could  only  have  it  by  means  of  a  previously  possessed  freedom, 
and  yet  in  its  present  state  it  can  only  obtain  freedom  by  means 
of  this  example.  Thus  a  circle  arises  :  freedom  presupposes  the 
example,  the  example  presupposes  freedom.  This  circle  is  only 
to  be  abolished  by  the  fact  that  the  example  should  once  be  actual 
reality,  absolutely  original,  beginning  from  the  very  roots,  and 
realizing  itself  in  a  person.  Now  this  did  take  place  in  Jesus. 
He  is  unique  through  His  originality.  All  who  enter  the  king" 
dom  of  heaven  attain  it  only  through  Him,  through  the  exam- 
ple which  He  sets  up  in  Himself  for  the  whole  race ;  for  all  are 
to  be  born  again  through  Him,  while  He  is  the  first  and  the  first- 
born Son.  Thus  does  Fichte  endeavor  to  infer  from  an  a  priori 
law  the  necessity  of  the  Person  of  Jesus."  2 

So  also,  later,  says  Dr.  Dorner  himself, — 

"The  form  and  contents  of  Revelation  only  attain  their  con- 
summation in  the  Divine  Incarnation,  and  in  such  a  way  that 

*  The  Law  of  the  Offerings. 

2  DR.  DORNER  :  History  of  Protestant  Theology,  ii.  339. 


APPENDIX. 


425 


the  consummation  of  Divine  Revelation  in  itself  becomes  also 
the  consummation  of  religion,  and  therewith  of  humanity.  This 
perfective  process  is  carried  into  effect  first  of  all  in  One  who,  as 
absolute  God-man,  is  both  the  Revealer  in  the  absolute  sense 
and  the  Man  embodying  God's  perfect  image,  while  at  the  same 
time  bringing  about  the  consummation  of  the  world. 

"The  meaning  of  the  text  is,  that  neither  the  form  nor  the 
content  of  Revelation  attains  its  perfection  and  the  goal  which 
Revelation  cannot  but  propose  to  itself,  until  it  has  passed  into 
Incarnation.  On  God's  side,  the  purpose  of  His  love  from  the 
beginning  is  perfect  self-communication;  the  form  and  contents 
of  Revelation.  ...  The  most  perfect  organ  of  Revelation  can 
only  be  the  man  who,  from  the  first  moment  of  his  existence,  in 
his  entire  person  lives  in  a  sphere  of  being  pertaining  to  Reve- 
lation and  never  separated  from  God.  But  in  the  circumstance 
of  his  entire  person  being  made  an  organ  of  Revelation,  is  given 
at  once  in  inseparable  unity  external  as  well  as  internal  revela- 
tion and  the  completion  of  both.  For  now  the  Divine  life  itself 
enters  into  a  human  life  ;  it  assumes  a  shape  that  embodies  and 
manifests  the  Divine  life  in  human  form,  and  is  therefore  Divine- 
human.  In  the  God-man  the  inner  spiritual  miracle  is  so  united 
with  the  outer  world-reality,  that  the  union  of  the  Divine  and 
human  life,  implied  in  the  idea  of  inspiration  without  measure, 
forms  a  man  who  in  the  midst  of  the  world  is  a  personal 
miracle,  —  the  God-man  who,  possessed  of  absolute  worth  in 
himself,  fully  answers  to  the  communicating  will  of  Divine  love, 
and  is  withal  destined  both  in  himself  to  give  perfect  expression 
to  human  nature,  and  outside  himself  to  consummate  human 
nature."  l 

The  views  of  Dr.  Dorner  are  not  precisely  those  of  Sweden- 
borg,  whom  he  treats  with  respect,  but  without  accepting  his 
direct  antagonism  to  Calvinism.  Dr.  D.  is  the  greatest  expo- 
nent of  the  effort  in  this  new  age  to  find  a  philosophic  basis  and 
interpretation  of  the  old  Christian  theology;  and  the  approach  to 
the  doctrines  of  Swedenborg  is  a  sign  of  the  times. 

V.— PAGE  u. 

"  THE  history  of  the  English  Deists  of  the  eighteenth  century 
is  indeed  a  very  singular  one.     At  a  time  when  the  spirit  of  the 
1  DR.  DORNER:  A  System  of  Christian  Doctrine,  ii.  205. 


426  APPENDIX. 

theology  of  the  Church  was  eminently  rationalistic,  they  were 
generally  repudiated,  and  by  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury they  had  already  fallen  into  neglect.  ...  A  latent  scepti- 
cism and  a  wide-spread  indifference  might  be  everywhere  traced 
among  the  educated  classes.  There  was  a  common  opinion  that 
Christianity  was  untrue,  but  essential  to  society,  and  that  on 
this  ground  alone  it  should  be  retained.  .  .  .  The  old  religion 
seemed  everywhere  loosening  around  the  minds  of  men,  and  it 
had  often  no  great  influence  even  on  its  defenders.  .  .  .  Butler, 
in  the  preface  to  his  Analogy,  declared  that  'it  had  come  to  be 
taken  for  granted  that  Christianity  is  not  so  much  as  a  subject  of 
inquiry,  but  that  it  is  now  at  length  discovered  to  be  fictitious. 
...  As  different  ages  have  been  distinguished  by  different 
sorts  of  particular  errors  and  vices,  the  deplorable  distinction  of 
ours  is  an  avowed  scorn  of  religion  in  some  and  a  growing  dis- 
regard of  it  in  the  generality.'  .  .  .  Montesquieu  summed  up 
his  observations  on  English  life  by  declaring,  no  doubt  with 
great  exaggeration,  that  there  was  no  religion  in  England,  that 
the  subject,  if  mentioned  in  society,  excited  nothing  but  laugh- 
ter, and  that  not  more  than  four  or  five  members  of  the  House 
of  Commons  were  regular  attendants  at  church.  .  .  .  *  People  of 
fashion,'  said  Archbishop  Seeker,  'especially  of  that  sex  which 
ascribes  to  itself  most  knowledge,  have  nearly  thrown  off.  all  ob- 
servation of  the  Lord's  Day,  .  .  .  and  if  to  avoid  scandal  they 
sometimes  vouchsafe  their  attendance  on  Divine  worship  in  the 
country,  they  seldom  or  never  do  it  in  town.'  .  .  .  Sunday  card- 
parties  during  a  great  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  were  fash- 
ionable entertainments  in  the  best  circles." J 

"Sir  William  Blackstone  'had  the  curiosity,  early  in  the  reign 
of  George  III.,  to  go  from  church  to  church  and  hear  every 
clergyman  of  note  in  London.  He  says  that  he  did  not  hear  a 
single  discourse  which  had  more  Christianity  in  it  than  the  writ- 
ings of  Cicero ;  and  that  it  would  have  been  impossible  for  him 
to  discover,  from  what  he  heard,  whether  the  preacher  were  a 
follower  of  Confucius,  of  Mahomet,  or  of  Christ.'"  * 

1  LECKY  :  History  of  England  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  ii.  567-581. 

2  ABBEY  AND  OVERTON  :  The  English  Church  in  the  Eighteenth  Century, 
ii-  37- 


APPENDIX. 


VI.  — PAGE  12. 


427 


IT  was  about  the  year  1686,  that  Philip  Jacob  Spener  founded 
what  soon  came  to  be  called  contemptuously  Pietism,  in  an  effort 
to  unite  brethren  in  a  life  of  practical  piety.  A  Lutheran,  he 
had  no  wish  to  renounce  or  supplant  Lutheranism,  but  contented 
himself  with  getting  kindred  spirits  to  read  and  pray  together, 
to  renounce  worldly  vanities,  and  to  live  a  pious,  charitable  life. 
The  rapidity  with  which  the  people  caught  at  his  system  shows 
the  readiness  of  their  hearts  for  something  more  satisfying  than 
dogmatic  theology.  The  same  spirit  of  the  times  is  shown  in 
the  phenomenon  of  "the  praying  children,"  which  appeared  in 
connection  with  the  Pietists  in  1707.  Children  from  four  years 
old  and  upwards  suddenly  began  assembling  in  the  open  fields, 
singing  and  praying,  especially  for  the  recovery  of  the  churches 
that  had  been  seized  by  the  Catholics.  From  field  to  field  the 
contagion  spread,  in  spite  of  prohibition  and  even  of  blows,  till 
it  extended  over  the  whole  country,  and  was  checked  only  by  the 
providing  of  churches  for  their  meetings.  Then  it  soon  died 
out.  At  Halle  the  Pietists  were  permitted  to  control  the  new 
university,  and  by  the  year  1727  more  than  six  thousand  the- 
ologians had  received  from  them  their  theological  education. 
Their  system  was  violently  opposed  by  the  Orthodox,  for  they 
taught  that  regeneration  was  not  effected  by  baptism,  as  Luther 
and  Calvin  held  with  the  Mother  Church,  but  was  an  awakening 
or  conversion,  which  was  conditioned  in  subsequent  life  by  the 
Word  of  God ;  that  only  living  faith  attained  justification,  and 
that  it  must  be  active  in  preserving  it,  a  sure  guarantee  existing 
only  in  a  faith  which  gave  evidence  of  being  alive  in  a  pious  life 
and  active  Christianity.  Later  Pietism  became  more  formal  and 
declined,  but  it  had  already  "poured  a  mighty  religious  stream 
into  the  national  life,  and  sustained  it  by  zealous  preaching, 
pastoral  care,  devotional  meetings,  and  an  almost  exuberant 
devotional  literature."1  Moreover,  Pietism  widely  and  in- 
creasingly modified  the  teaching  of  the  whole  Lutheran  Church, 
as  Methodism  had  done  that  of  the  Anglican  Church,  and  as 
Moravian! sm,  in  less  degree,  that  of  the  Reformed  or  Calvinist 
Church. 

A  spirit  nearly  akin  to  that  of  the  Pietists  became  conspic- 
uous in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  at  the  incoming  of  the 
1  Kurtz,  ii.  250. 


428  APPENDIX. 

eighteenth  century,  in  the  lives  and  writings  of  Madame  Guyon 
and  Archbishop  Fdnelon.  Nothing  purer  and  more  elevated 
had  appeared  in  the  Church.  Nothing  perhaps  has  exercised 
greater  influence  for  good  both  in  the  Catholic  and  in  the  Pro- 
testant Churches,  to  this  day.  Yet  their  substitution  of  inward, 
spontaneous,  fervid  prayer  in  place  of  the  formalities  of  the 
Church  was  thought  to  interfere  with  its  power,  and  Madame 
Guyon  and  the  good  Archbishop  both  fell  under  its  condemna- 
tion,—  the  one  being  sent  to  pass  her  days  in  a  dungeon,  the 
other  meekly  bowing  in  submission  to  the  Holy  See. 

It  is  remarkable  that  the  Moravians,  under  Zinzendorf,  with 
their  ecstatic  profession  of  affectional  union  with  their  Saviour, 
attracted  the  interest  first  of  Wesley  and  somewhat  later  of  Swe1 
denborg,  at  their  meetings  in  London.  Wesley  was  much  influ- 
enced by  them,  about  the  beginning  of  his  great  revival,  in  1738 ; 
but  Swedenborg  soon  discovered  their  insincerity  and  denounced 
them,  for  which  he  was  denounced  in  turn.  Of  the  great  move- 
ment set  on  foot  by  the  Wesleys  and  Whitefield  it  is  to  be  re- 
membered that  nothing  equal  in  extent  and  power  had  occurred 
since  the  Reformation.  And  indeed  it  was,  with  Pietism,  a  re- 
formation like  that  of  John  the  Baptist  in  the  wilderness,  laying 
low  the  mountains  and  raising  up  the  valleys  in  preparation  for 
what  was  to  come. 


VII.— PAGE  13. 

THE  conditions  of  a  consummation  are  as  obvious  in  the 
causes  of  the  French  Revolution  as  in  the  catastrophe  itself. 
Among  these  causes  we  may  reckon  first  the  oppression  of  the 
laboring  class  by  Church  and  State  and  Gentry,  all  for  mere 
voluptuous  indulgence.  Fdnelon  wrote  to  the  king, — 

"Your  people  are  dying  of  hunger.  The  tillage  of  the  land  is 
almost  abandoned.  Towns  and  villages  are  being  depopulated. 
All  the  trades  languish  and  no  longer  feed  the  workmen.  ...  In 
place  of  drawing  money  from  this  poor  people,  they  ought  to  re- 
ceive alms  and  be  fed.  All  France  is  nothing  now  but  a  great 
hospital,  stripped  and  without  provisions.  Popular  movements, 
which  had  been  long  unknown,  are  becoming  frequent.  .  .  .  You 
are  reduced  to  the  deplorable  extremity,  either  of  leaving  sedi- 
tion unpunished,  or  of  massacring  the  people  whom  you  drive  to 


APPENDIX.  429 

despair,  and  who  are  perishing  every  day  with  disease  caused  by 
famine.  While  they  want  bread,  you  yourself  want  money,  and 
you  will  not  see  the  extremity  to  which  you  are  reduced." 

An  official  account  in  1698  had  said, — 

"In  the  greater  part  of  Rouen,  in  Normandy,  which  was 
always  one  of  the  most  industrious  and  well-to-do  provinces,  out 
of  seven  hundred  thousand  souls  there  are  not  fifty  thousand 
who  eat  bread  at  their  ease  and  who  sleep  on  anything  better 
than  straw.  In  the  greater  part  of  Caen  the  population  has 
diminished  a  half  by  poverty." 

In  1707  Vauban  wrote, — 

"  The  tenth  part  of  the  people  is  reduced  to  beggary,  and  begs 
in  fact:  two  million  beggars  out  of  twenty  million  people.  Of 
the  other  nine  tenths  there  are  five  who  are  not  in  condition  to 
give  alms  to  the  one  tenth,  because  they  are  within  a  trifle  of 
being  reduced  to  the  same  wretched  condition;  and  of  the  four 
remaining  tenths,  three  are  very  poorly  off." 

In  1725  Saint  Simon  wrote, — 

"The  poor  people  of  Normandy  eat  grass,  and  the  kingdom  is 
turned  into  a  vast  hospital  of  the  dying  and  of  those  driven  to 
despair." 

In  1740  Bishop  Massillon  wrote  to  Minister  Fleury, — 

"My  lord,  the  people  of  our  country  live  in  frightful  poverty, 
without  bed,  without  furniture.  The  greater  part  even  lack,  for 
half  the  year,  oat  and  barley  bread,  which  makes  their  sole  sub- 
sistence, and  are  obliged  to  tear  it  from  their  own  and  their  chil- 
dren's mouths  to  pay  their  taxes." 

In  1745  the  Duke  of  Orleans  said  to  Louis  XV.  on  presenting 
him  with  some  fern  bread:  "Sire,  see  on  what  your  subjects 
feed."1 

When  we  consider  that  the  clergy  held  the  third  part  of  the 
soil  of  France  and  exacted  a  tithe  of  the  produce  of  the  rest, 
affecting  to  call  this  tithe  a  free-will  offering,  while  they  prose- 
cuted forty  thousand  lawsuits  to  enforce  it,  we  can  see  that  the 
crash  must  come,  and  can  understand  why  Church  and  State 
domination  must  go  down  together. 

"During  the  eighteenth  century  men  were  speculating  on  re- 
ligion, government,  and  society  in  a  more  daring  way  than  they 
had  ever  speculated  on  so  great  a  scale  before.  .  .  .  This  whole 
period,  then,  was  one  of  very  great  importance,  but  it  was  mainly 
1  LACOMBE  :  Petite  Histoire  du  Peuple  Fran^ais,  p.  202. 


43O  APPENDIX. 

in  the  way  of  preparation  for  what  was  coming.  ...  In  most 
branches  of  art,  learning,  and  original  composition  the  eight- 
eenth century  was  below  either  the  times  before  or  the  times 
after  it.  It  seemed  as  if  the  world  needed  to  be  stirred  up  by 
some  such  general  crash  as  was  now  near  at  hand.  ...  It  was 
a  time  [the  latter  part  of  the  century]  which  saw  such  an  up- 
setting of  the  existing  state  of  things  everywhere  as  had  never 
happened  before  in  so  short  a  space  of  time.  .  .  .  But  in  this 
general  crash  the  evil  of  the  older  times  was  largely  swept  away 
as  well  as  the  good,  and  means  were  at  least  given  for  a  better 
state  of  things  to  begin  in  our  own  time."  1 


VIII.— PAGE  115. 

THIS  topic  is  nowhere  more  finely  treated  than  in  Matheson's 
Growth  of  the  Spirit  of  Christianity: — 

"  Let  us  marshal  once  again  the  testimonies  of  the  past.  We 
have  seen  the  mind  of  man  sleeping  profoundly  in  China,  dream- 
ing wildly  in  Brahma,  reposing  restlessly  in  Buddha,  half- waking 
in  Persia,  fully  conscious  in  Egypt,  strongly  active  in  Greece. 
Then  we  have  seen  the  life  of  strength  taken  up  into  the  life  of 
sacrifice,  the  power  to  do  transmuted  into  the  power  to  suffer, 
and  Paganism  fading  in  the  light  of  Christianity.  Christianity 
itself  we  have  beheld  rising  from  very  small  beginnings:  first, 
the  infant  that  could  only  wonder;  next,  at  the  Pentecostal  out- 
pouring, the  child  learning  to  speak;  then,  in  the  home  associ- 
ations of  Jerusalem,  the  child  learning  to  feel.  By  and  by  we 
have  seen  these  home  associations  broken,  and  Christianity 
driven  forth  to  seek  an  enlarged  sympathy  and  a  wider  brother- 
hood. We  have  seen  the  child's  first  guesses  at  truth,  its  first 
experiences  of  worldly  contact,  and  its  first  dreams  of  worldly 
ambition.  We  have  marked  how  these  dreams  were  disap- 
pointed in  the  very  act  of  their  fulfilment,  and  how  the  attain- 
ment of  childhood's  goal  was  the  death  of  childhood's  joy. 
Then  we  have  followed  the  spirit  of  Christianity  from  the  life  of 
childhood  into  the  life  of  school;  have  seen  it  first  trained  under 
the  abbot,  and  afterwards  under  the  rod  of  the  Roman  bishop. 
We  have  observed  the  gradual  yet  steady  development  of  that 
scholastic  life,  from  its  beginning  in  the  representation  of  truth 

1  EDW.  A.  FREEMAN  :  General  Sketch  of  History  (Am.  ed.),  pp.  325-27. 


APPENDIX. 


431 


by  images,  to  its  glorious  consummation  in  the  incarnation  of 
truth  in  art.  We  have  marked  how,  at  each  successive  stage  of 
development,  the  school-life  became  more  and  more  dissatisfied 
with  school,  and  how  as  the  spirit  grew  larger  than  the  form,  the 
form  became  increasingly  repulsive  to  the  spirit.  We  have 
traced  the  violent  revolutions  by  which  that  repulsiveness  was 
manifested,  from  the  image  controversy  of  the  East  to  the  rising 
of  Wycliffe  in  the  West.  At  last,  in  the  Council  of  Constance, 
we  have  beheld  the  close  of  the  school-life  and  the  entrance 
into  the  age  of  youth.  We  have  followed  Christianity  through 
its  youthful  Utopian  dreams,  have  seen  the  castles  of  its  fancy 
and  the  lands  of  its  imagination  beyond  the  sea,  and  have  heard 
the  proud  boast  of  independence  by  which  it  asserted  its  newly 
found  freedom.  And  we  have  seen  how  the  castles  crumbled 
into  ruins;  we  have  marked  how  the  lands  faded  into  empty 
space ;  we  have  heard  how  the  proud  boast  was  transformed  into 
a  bitter  cry, —  the  cry  of  disappointed  hope,  the  cry  of  unsatis- 
fied desire.  We  have  seen,  finally,  how  the  conscious  helpless- 
ness of  youth  was  to  be  the  regenerative  hour  of  manhood, 
joining  together  the  long-separated  elements  of  individual  free- 
dom and  individual  responsibility, —  the  power  of  self-action  and 
the  necessity  to  act  for  God.  Thus  far  we  have  journeyed,  and 
we  need  journey  no  farther  in  order  to  reach  the  great  conclu- 
sion that  this  world  is  not  a  chaos,  but  a  cosmos ;  not  a  series 
of  chances,  but  a  grand  moral  order.  It  is  not  that]  here  and 
there  in  the  history  of  the  past  we  observe  the  outburst  of  great 
practical  movements ;  it  is  not  that  in  some  apparently  isolated 
events  the  historian  can  succeed  in  tracing  a  deep  connection, — 
such  facts  would  be  powerfully  suggestive,  but  they  would  not 
necessarily  be  persuasive.  But  there  is  a  river  of  life,  never 
diverted,  never  broken;  a  river  sometimes  corrupted  in  its 
waters  by  the  soil  it  is  passing  through,  sometimes  retarded  in 
its  course  by  the  artificial  embankments  raised  by  man,  yet 
through  all  corruptions  and  through  all  retardations  swelling 
surely  onward  to  the  mighty  sea.  The  course  of  humanity  has 
been  an  onward  course.  Individual  men  have  gone  back,  indi- 
vidual nations  have  gone  back,  but  humanity  itself  has  never 
receded.  And  wheresoever  Christianity  has  breathed,  it  has 
accelerated  the  movement  of  humanity.  It  has  quickened  the 
pulses  of  life ;  it  has  stimulated  the  incentives  to  thought;  it  has 


432 


APPENDIX. 


tuned  the  passions  into  peace;  it  has  warmed  the  heart  into 
brotherhood  ;  it  has  fanned  the  imagination  into  genius ;  it  has 
freshened  the  soul  into  purity.  The  progress  of  Christian 
Europe  has  been  the  progress  of  mind  over  matter.  .  .  .  We 
see  the  universal  life  moulding  the  individual  lives,  the  one 
will  dominating  the  many  wills,  the  infinite  wisdom  utilizing 
the  finite  folly,  the  changeless  truth  permeating  the  restless 
error,  the  boundless  beneficence  bringing  blessing  out  of  all" 
(ii.  392). 

IX. —  PAGE  125. 

A  RECENT  writer  in  the  German  Astronomical  Quarterly 
(1879),  Magnus  Nyrdn,  in  an  exposition  of  the  cosmogony  of 
Swede nborg's  Principia  as  a  contribution  to  the  history  of  the 
nebular  hypothesis  of  Kant  and  Laplace,  draws  the  following 
conclusions  :  — 

"As  one  sees,  this  [the  cosmogony  of  Swedenborg]  differs 
in  a  single  important  particular  from  the  later,  regarded  as  the 
most  probable,  accepted  hypothesis  on  the  same  subject ;  and  in 
general  his  conclusions,  with  the  exception  of  the  vortical  theory, 
are  founded  on  the  most  scientific  basis.  In  spite  of  this  defect, 
and  even  of  many  evident  faults  in  regard  to  what  is  possible 
according  to  the  theory  of  gravitation,  it  cannot  be  denied  that 
the  true  fundamental  principle  of  the  nebular  theory  was  first 
declared  by  Swedenborg, —  namely,  that  the  entire  solar  system 
was  formed  out  of  a  single  chaotic  mass,  which  was  at  first  col- 
lected in  the  form  of  a  colossal  sphere,  and  afterwards  by  rota- 
tion threw  off  a  ring,  which  then,  during  the  continued  rotation, 
divided  into  separate  portions,  and  these  at  length  gathered 
themselves  up  into  spheres  —  the  planets. 

"The  work  of  Kant  on  this  subject,  'Universal  History  of 
Nature  and  Theory  of  the  Heavens,'  was  not  published  until 
1755,  twenty-one  years  later.  Laplace  did  not  make  known  his 
theory  until  sixty-two  years  later.  It  is  here  also  to  be  remarked, 
that  Swedenborg  gave  to  his  hypothesis  the  correct  form,  ac- 
cording to  all  the  probabilities, —  that  (as  was  also  adopted  by 
Laplace)  the  planets  came  into  existence  from  separated  rings, 
.  .  .  not  as  Kant  thought,  in  already  formed  masses  directly  out 
of  the  original  mass  of  vapor.  ...  In  regard  to  the  correctness 


APPENDIX.  433 

of  the  above-given  explanation  of  the  statement  that  the  Milky 
Way  is  the  common  axis  of  the  starry  heavens,  I  do  not  here 
undertake  properly  to  make  reliable  conclusions  concerning 
Swedenborg's  views  of  the  question  touched  upon.  But  when, 
as  it  seems  to  me,  no  other  meaning  can  be  found  therein  than 
that  the  Milky  Way  is  the  equatorial  intersection — zodiac — of 
our  entire  visible  sphere  of  the  heavens,  the  priority  belongs  to 
Swedenborg.  In  reference  to  the  first  ideas  advanced  concern- 
ing the  star-system  of  the  Milky  Way,  that,  while  one  metes  out 
justice  to  Swedenborg,  one  does  not  in  the  least  diminish  the 
merit  due  to  Kant  and  Laplace  in  regard  to  the  question  spoken 
of,  is  well  understood.  For,  firstly,  neither  of  these  two  evi- 
dently knew  anything  of  Swedenborg's  opinions  on  the  same 
subject,  although  a  reference  to  them  appeared  in  the  Acta 
Eruditorum,  Leipsic,  for  1737;  and  Kant  mentions  in  his 
treatise  giving  forth  his  views,  that  these  writings  were  accessi- 
ble to  him  ;  so  that  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he  would  have 
mentioned  it,  if  he  had  borrowed  for  his  ideas  anything  from 
Swedenborg.  Secondly,  Kant  and  also  Laplace  have  the  undis- 
puted credit  of  having  elucidated  and  explained  the  hypothesis 
in  question  from  the  standpoint  of  the  theory  of  gravitation, 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  Swedenborg  worked  out  every  con- 
clusion deductively  according  to  the  demands  of  the  vortical 
theory." 

This  is  not  the  first  nor  the  broadest  claim  that  has  been 
made  for  the  astronomical  speculations  of  the  Principia,  but 
we  select  it,  in  preference  to  claims  that  have  been  made  by 
Swedenborg's  friends,  for  its  recent  and  high  authority,  and  for 
its  generous  fairness.  It  is  not  uncommon  to  lay  stress  on  the 
fact  that  Laplace  credited  Buffon  with  the  first  suggestion  of  a 
nebular  theory,  and  that  Buffon  is  known  to  have  possessed  a 
copy  of  Swedenborg's  Principia,  which  was  published  ten  years 
before  his  own  theory.1  But  we  like  the  spirit  of  the  writer 
now  quoted,  and  join  him  in  crediting  all  these  great  thinkers 
with  having  worked  out  their  own  conclusions  independently. 
We  will  but  add  the  single  remark,  that  the  Principia  can  afford 
to  wait  another  hundred  years,  if  need  be,  for  the  acceptance 
of  its  vortical  theory. 

1  Translator's  Introduction  to  the  Principia,  ii.  80. 
28 


434  APPENDIX. 

X.— PAGE  134. 

M.  MATTER  says, — 

"The  same  year  he  published  also  at  Dresden  a  volume  on 
the  three  great  questions  of  the  time:  The  Infinite;  The  Final 
Cause  of  nature  ;  and  The  Mysterious  Bond  of  the  Soul  and  the 
Body  (Outline  of  Rational  Philosophy,  etc.). 

"And  here  again  it  will  be  necessary  for  us  to  give  an  idea  of 
this  work  in  order  to  have  some  comprehension  of  the  extent  of 
the  science  of  the  author,  the  elevation  of  his  mind,  and  its 
familiarity  with  the  highest  speculative  regions,  with  which  the 
learned  man  of  Stockholm  must  soon  enter  into  the  third,  so 
extraordinary,  phase  of  his  life.  The  author  means  that  every 
thought  be  reasonable,  and  every  exposition  of  idea  simple,  even 
to  familiarity.  Never  is  the  reasonable  contrary  to  revelation, 
he  says,  and  never  is  what  is  not  clear  philosophic. 

"This  simplicity  does  not  prevent  originality. 

"The  question  of  the  Infinite  then  agitated  is  always  still  to 
be  resolved,  human  intelligence  being  incapable  of  embracing 
the  thing  which  is  in  question,  and  comprehending  only  the  idea, 
or  the  word  which  is  used  to  designate  it.  It  had  just  been 
treated  in  Sweden  by  the  creator  of  modern  philosophy.  For 
Descartes,  the  world  was  the  infinite  whole  of  worlds,  the  uni- 
verse without  bounds,  the  Divine  creation  or  formation  of  which 
offered  difficult  problems.  The  friend  of  Queen  Christina 
boldly  explained  its  origin  by  means  of  three  elements, —  subtile 
matter  or  fine  dust,  little  globules,  and  matters  deprived  entirely 
or  animated  with  little  motion  (see  our  History  of  Philosophy 
in  its  relations  with  Religion,  p.  265).  Swedenborg,  who  was 
Cartesian  for  philosophy  properly  so-called,  logic  and  method, 
was  very  little  so  for  psychology  and  metaphysics,  and  not  at 
all  for  cosmology.  He  changed  from  the  foundation  all  this 
theory,  and  demanded,  without  any  disrespect  for  a  great  name, 
but  with  entire  independence,  that  incontestable  facts  should 
be  put  in  place  of  those  conceptions  which  are  little  else  than 
assertions. 

"  From  Descartes,  Swedenborg  passed  to  Bacon  with  the  same 
ease,  the  same  respect,  and  the  same  superiority  in  the  question 
of  the  final  causes  of  each  of  the  great  works  of  nature,  or  of 
the  final  cause  of  the  whole. 


APPENDIX. 


435 


"  Bacon,  to  lead  philosophers  to  become  observers  of  facts, — 
in  a  word,  naturalists,  and  not  inventors  of  systems,  that  is  to  say 
hypotheses, —  had  proscribed  final  causes ;  or,  rather,  he  had  in- 
terdicted search  for  them.  What  is  given  us  in  phenomena  is 
phenomena,  he  said.  Let  us  establish  it :  that  is  our  part.  As 
for  the  cause,  it  does  not  belong  to  us.  That  is  the  part  of  the 
Creator.  This  manner  of  clearing  up  the  question  by  closing 
the  eyes,  did  not  suit  Swedenborg.  It  is  not  in  the  power  of 
the  human  mind  to  renounce  it,  said  he,  and  it  would  be  wrong 
to  do  it  if  we  could. 

"After  Descartes  and  Bacon,  the  turn  of  Leibnitz  came  in  the 
study  of  the  third  question, —  the  problem  of  the  bond  between 
the  soul  and  the  body.  Leibnitz  had  just  given  that  hypothesis 
of  pre-established  harmony  of  which  he  made  much,  but  which 
satisfied  nobody,  not  even  Wolff,  the  most  faithful  of  his  disci- 
ples. Swedenborg,  who  aimed  at  the  soul  in  all  his  studies  on 
the  animal  kingdom,  so  eminent  in  the  creations  of  nature,  could 
not  help  desiring  to  do  better  with  this  problem.  And  if  ever 
the  question  of  the  soul  was  treated  loftily,  it  was  by  him. 

"He  began  by  proclaiming  this  great  principle  and  this  fine 
rule, —  that  in  order  to  explain  the  soul  we  must  go  to  the  body, 
the  microcosm,  the  world  which  it  inhabits :  the  secret  or  the 
science  of  the  soul  is  there  alone.  But  it  is  not  by  the  synthetic 
way,  in  which  we  find  and  affirm  what  we  please  ;  it  is  by  the 
analytic  way,  in  which  we  establish  and  declare  what  we  can, 
that  we  must  proceed  in  this  field. 

"The  great  merit  of  Swedenborg  in  the  discussion  of  these 
three  questions  is  in  having  aided,  in  the  name  of  facts,  in 
giving  liberty  to  philosophy.  In  philosophy,  as  in  politics,  in 
order  that  life  and  natural  movement  may  return,  it  is  necessary 
to  begin  by  overturning  the  despotism  which  stops  the  circula- 
tion. Swedenborg  was  rightly  impatient  with  the  state  of  stag- 
nation in  which  three  overgrown  authorities,—  Bacon,  Descartes, 
and  Leibnitz,— held  minds  enchained  ;  and  Wolff  was  ri^ht  in 
paying  homage  to  him  who  worked  so  well  for  the  deliverance  of 
thought.  Swedenborg,  it  is  true,  did  not  finally  settle  any  of 
these  questions,  and  every  philosopher  knows  why  ;  but  he  set 
them  all  three  free." 1 

1    S-wedenborg  ;  sa  vie,  p.  41-43. 


436  APPENDIX. 

XL— PAGE  168. 

THE  question  is  a  serious  one,  whether  science  is  really  any 
nearer  now  to  an  acknowledgment  of  the  God  of  heaven  than  it 
was  in  the  middle  of  the  last  century.  It  is  true  that  there  are 
still  men  of  science,  eminent  in  their  way,  who  seek  to  find  all 
causes  in  physical  forces  and  conditions,  and  who  ignore  the 
Deity  and  immortality.  But  on  the  other  hand  there  are  men  of 
science  not  less  eminent,  and  who  have  the  heart  of  the  world 
with  them,  to  whom  the  phenomena  of  nature  are  but  revelations 
of  the  mind  of  an  all-wise  and  all-beneficent  God.  A  few  years 
ago  there  were  working  side  by  side,  within  hearing  of  our 
printing-press,  three  professors  of  natural  science,  each  unsur- 
passed in  the  world  in  his  chosen  department, — Agassiz,  Pierce, 
and  Gray.  In  Professor  Agassiz's  Preface  to  his  famed  Essay 
on  Classification  he  said,  in  speaking  of  the  divisions  of  the 
animal  kingdom, — 

"Are  those  divisions  artificial  or  natural  ?  Are  they  the  de- 
vices of  the  human  mind  to  classify  and  arrange  our  knowledge 
in  such  a  manner  as  to  bring  it  more  readily  within  our  grasp 
and  facilitate  further  investigations,  or  have  they  been  instituted 
by  the  Divine  Intelligence  as  the  categories  of  His  mode  of 
thinking?  Have  we,  perhaps,  thus  far  been  only  the  uncon- 
scious interpreters  of  a  Divine  conception,  in  our  attempts  to 
expound  nature  ?  ...  To  me  it  appears  indisputable,  that  this 
order  and  arrangement  of  our  studies  are  based  upon  the  natural, 
primitive  relations  of  animal  life, —  those  systems  to  which  we 
have  given  the  names  of  the  great  leaders  of  our  science  who 
first  proposed  them,  being  in  truth  but  translations  into  human 
language  of  the  thoughts  of  the  Creator.  And  if  this  is  indeed 
so,  do  we  not  find  in  this  adaptability  of  the  human  intellect  to 
the  facts  of  creation,  by  which  we  become  instinctively,  and,  as 
I  have  said,  unconsciously,  the  translators  of  the  thoughts  of 
God,  the  most  conclusive  proof  of  our  affinity  with  the  Divine 
Mind  ?  And  is  not  this  intellectual  and  spiritual  connection 
with  the  Almighty  worthy  of  our  deepest  consideration?  If 
there  is  any  truth  in  the  belief  that  man  is  made  in  the  image  of 
God,  it  is  surely  not  amiss  for  the  philosopher  to  endeavor,  by 
the  study  of  his  own  mental  operations,  to  approximate  the 
workings  of  the  Divine  Reason,  learning  from  the  nature  of  his 


APPENDIX. 


437 


own  mind  better  to  understand  the  Infinite  Intellect  from  which 
it  is  derived.  But  who  is  the  truly  humble  ?  He  who,  pene- 
trating into  the  secrets  of  creation,  arranges  them  under  a 
formula,  which  he  proudly  calls  his  scientific  system  ?  —  or  he 
who  in  the  same  pursuit  recognizes  his  glorious  affinity  with  the 
Creator,  and  in  deepest  gratitude  for  so  sublime  a  birthright 
strives  to  be  the  faithful  interpreter  of  that  Divine  Intellect  with 
whom  he  is  permitted,  nay,  with  whom  he  is  intended,  according 
to  the  laws  of  his  being,  to  enter  into  communion  ?  "• 

"If  it  can  be  proved  .  .  .  that  this  plan  of  creation,  which  so 
commends  itself  to  our  highest  wisdom,  has  not  grown  out  of 
the  necessary  action  of  physical  laws,  but  was  the  free  con- 
ception of  the  Almighty  Intellect,  matured  in  His  thought  before 
it  was  manifested  in  tangible  external  forms ;  if,  in  short,  we 
can  prove  premeditation  prior  to  the  act  of  creation, — we  have 
done,  once  and  for  ever,  with  the  desolate  theory  which  refers  us 
to  the  laws  of  matter  as  accounting  for  all  the  wonders  of  the 
universe,  and  leaves  us  with  no  God  but  the  monotonous,  un- 
varying action  of  physical  forces,  binding  all  things  to  their 
incurable  destiny.  I  think  our  science  has  now  reached  that 
degree  of  advancement,  when  we  may  venture  upon  such  an 
investigation." 

Professor  Gray  prefaced  his  Botany  for  Young  People  with 
the  beautiful  verses  from  Matthew:  "CONSIDER  THE  LILIES 
OF  THE  FIELD,  HOW  THEY  GROW  :  THEY  TOIL  NOT,  NEITHER 
DO  THEY  SPIN  :  AND  YET  I  SAY  UNTO  YOU,  THAT  EVEN 
SOLOMON  IN  ALL  HIS  GLORY  WAS  NOT  ARRAYED  LIKE  ONE 

OF   THESE." 

Then  he  said,  "  OUR  LORD'S  direct  object  in  this  lesson  of 
the  Lilies  was  to  convince  the  people  of  God's  care  for  them. 
Now,  this  clothing  of  the  earth  with  plants  and  flowers  —  at  once 
so  beautiful  and  useful,  so  essential  to  all  animal  life  —  is  one 
of  the  very  ways  in  which  HE  takes  care  of  His  creatures. 
And  when  Christ  himself  directs  us  to  consider  with  attention 
the  plants  around  us  ;  to  notice  how  they  grow,  —  how  varied, 
how  numerous,  and  how  elegant  they  are,  and  with  what  exquisite 
skill  they  are  fashioned  and  adorned,  —  we  shall  surely  find  it 
profitable  and  pleasant  to  learn  the  lessons  which  they  teach." 

Again  he  said,  in  his  address  on  "  Natural  Science  and 
Religion,"  — 


438 


APPENDIX. 


"  I  accept  Christianity  on  its  own  evidence,  .  .  .  and  I  am 
yet  to  learn  how  physical  or  any  other  science  conflicts  with  it. 
...  I  take  it  that  religion  is  based  on  the  idea  of  a  Divine 
Mind  revealing  Himself  to  intelligent  creatures  for  moral  ends. 
...  I  suppose  that  the  Old  Testament  carried  the  earlier  reve- 
lation and  the  germs  of  Christianity,  as  the  Apostles  carried 
the  treasures  of  the  Gospel,  in  earthen  vessels.  .  .  .  But  how- 
ever we  may  differ  in  regard  to  the  earlier  stages  of  religious 
development,  we  shall  agree  in  this,— that  revelation  culminated, 
and  for  us  most  essentially  consists,  in  the  advent  of  a  Divine 
Person,  who,  being  made  man,  manifested  the  Divine  Nature 
in  union  with  the  human ;  and  that  this  manifestation  consti- 
tutes Christianity." 

Professor  Benjamin  Pierce  began  his  great  text-book  of 
Analytic  Mechanics,  with  these  three  propositions  :  — 

"  i.  Motion  is  an  essential  element  of  all  physical  phenomena ; 
and  its  introduction  into  the  universe  of  matter  was  necessarily 
the  preliminary  act  of  creation.  The  earth  must  have  remained 
forever  '  without  form,  and  void,'  and  eternal  darkness  must 
have  been  upon  the  face  of  the  deep,  if  the  spirit  of  God  had 
not  first  *  moved  upon  the  face  of  the  waters.' 

"  2.  Motion  appears  to  be  the  simplest  manifestation  of  power, 
and  the  idea  of  force  seems  to  be  primitively  derived  from  the 
conscious  effort  which  is  required  to  produce  motion.  Force 
may,  then,  be  regarded  as  having  a  spiritual  origin,  and  when  it 
is  imparted  to  the  physical  world,  motion  is  its  usual  form  of 
mechanical  exhibition. 

"3.  Matter  is  purely  inert.  It  is  susceptive  of  receiving  and 
containing  any  amount  of  mechanical  force  which  may  be  com- 
municated to  it,  but  cannot  originate  new  force,  or  in  any  way 
transform  the  force  which  it  has  received." 

In  the  "  Conclusion "  of  the  book  are  found  the  following 
memorable  words :  — 

"  In  the  beginning,  the  creating  spirit  embodied  in  the  material 
universe  those  laws  and  forms  of  motion  which  were  best  ad- 
apted to  the  instruction  and  development  of  the  created  intellect. 
The  relations  of  the  physical  world  to  man  as  developed  in  space 
and  time,  as  ordered  in  proximate  simplicity  and  remote  compli- 
cation, in  the  immediate  supply  of  bodily  wants  by  the  mechanic 
arts,  and  the  infinite  promise  of  spiritual  enjoyment  by  the  con- 


APPENDIX.  439 

templation  and  study  of  unlimited  change  and  variety  of  phe- 
nomena, are  admirably  adapted  to  stimulate  and  encourage  the 
action  and  growth  of  the  mind.  .  .  .  But  it  is  time  to  return  to 
nature,  and  learn  from  her  actual  solutions  the  recondite  analysis 
of  the  more  obscure  problems  of  celestial  and  physical  mechanics. 
In  these  researches  there  is  one  lesson  which  cannot  escape  the 
profound  observer.  Every  portion  of  the  material  universe  is 
pervaded  by  the  same  laws  of  mechanical  action  which  are  in- 
corporated into  the  very  constitution  of  the  human  mind.  The 
solution  of  the  problem  of  this  universal  presence  of  such  a 
spiritual  element  is  obvious  and  necessary.  THERE  is  ONE 

GOD,    AND    SCIENCE   IS   THE    KNOWLEDGE    OF   HlM." 

Later,  in  his  series  of  Lowell  lectures,  Professor  Pierce  had 
for  his  leading  idea  the  revelation  of  the  one  God  in  all  His 
works  :  — 

"  That  the  perfection  of  theology  requires  that  all  the  gods 
should  be  reduced  to  one  God,  will  be  admitted.  But  let  us 
consider  where  the  proposition  lands  us,  that  all  science  can 
be  reduced  to  one  fact.  Among  the  facts  to  be  embodied  are 
the  facts  of  omnipresent  ideality,  the  intelligible  cosmos,  and  the 
all-comprehending  intellect.  The  law  of  universal  gravitation 
must  be  incorporated  in  it,  and  the  laws  of  rest  and  motion,  of 
chemistry  and  heat  and  electricity,  of  sound  and  light,  and  of 
all  vibrations  audible  and  inaudible,  visible  and  invisible,  and 
of  all  forms  of  sensation  actual  or  possible.  All  the  laws  of  the 
material  world  must  be  included,  and  they  will  constitute  its 
least  part.  The  mind  of  man  must  be  in  it,  with  its  philosophy, 
its  emotions,  and  its  infinite  capacity  of  development.  It  must 
contain  the  law  of  love,  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  the 
Lord's  Prayer.  What  can  this  mighty  fact  be  but  God  Him- 
self?" 

"  We  need  not  search  the  obscure  past  to  find  out  God.  It 
is  not  in  the  first  appearance  of  animal  life  or  of  man  himself 
that  He  need  be  sought,  any  more  than  in  the  whirlwind  or  the 
earthquake.  His  dwelling  is  not  where  the  law  of  continuity  is 
broken.  There  would  be  the  proper  home  of  some  heathen 
deity,  who  rejoiced  in  lawlessness.  But  our  God  proclaims 
Himself  in  the  silent  law  of  gravitation  ;  He  is  forever  present 
in  the  quiet  grandeur  and  intellectual  simplicity  of  the  processes 
of  the  nebular  theory,  and  in  the  soul  of  man,  which  is  fitted  to 


44O  APPENDIX. 

understand  the  Divine  harmony.  The  Creator  is  not  ruled  out 
of  the  universe  by  our  theory  of  evolution.  That  which  we 
call  evolution  is  but  the  mode  in  which  He  is  present  on  whom 
mortal  cannot  look  with  physical  eyes  and  live.  It  is  the  mani- 
festation of  His  paternity.  He  becomes  through  it,  more  leg- 
ibly than  ever,  the  beginning  and  the  end,  the  Alpha  and  the 
Omega,  the  eternal  I  AM,  the  omnipresent  Father,  the  breath 
of  whose  nostrils  is  wisdom  and  power  and  love." 

"O  ye  of  little  faith!  Accept  the  Divine  record  of  the 
sidereal  universe,  or  ye  would  not  believe  in  God  if  His  name 
were  written  in  letters  of  fire  upon  the  firmament !  To  reject 
the  ideal  history  is  to  strengthen  the  stronghold  of  scepticism. 
It  is  to  deny  the  celestial  doctrine  written  upon  the  heavens 
and  the  earth.  It  is  to  reject  the  law  of  the  Lord,  which  is 
perfect,  converting  the  soul.  Let  the  children  be  faithful  to  the 
Father,  and  loyally  receive  the  declaration  that  He  made  the 
light  with  which  He  shines  through  the  stars,  and  that  it  is 
good." 

"  The  birth  of  Christianity  changed  the  whole  firmament  of 
thought.  It  was  a  new  spiritual  world  into  which  the  race  was 
transported.  Centuries  of  profound  brooding  were  required,  ere 
mankind  could  shake  off  the  torpor  of  the  ancient  darkness  and 
awake  to  the  morning  light  of  the  Gospel.  But  when  at  last 
the  eyes  were  fully  opened,  the  natural  world  was  revealed  in  a 
new  light,  learning  revived  in  grander  aspects,  and  science  was 
transformed  from  speciality  to  generality." 

"Why  have  such  curious  and  intricate  celestial  problems 
been  presented  to  man's  appetite  for  knowledge?  .  .  .  The 
changing  surface  of  the  sun  and  his  planets;  the  wonderful 
system  of  Saturn,  with  his  mysterious  ring  and  his  many  satel- 
lites ;  the  intricate  maze  of  the  cluster  of  Hercules  and  of  the 
Pleiades ;  the  immense  nebular  and  stellar  transformations,— 
are  a  stimulus  to  research,  presented  by  the  Divine  teacher,  and 
a  promise,  surer  than  the  rainbow,  that  we  shall  be  delivered 
from  this  deep  flood  of  ignorance.  .  .  .  Such  is  the  glory  and 
majesty  of  the  intellectual  future  life,  naturally  suggested  to 
the  faith  of  the  Christian  philosopher.  How  infinitely  grand, 
in  comparison  with  the  sensual  joys  promised  by  other  forms 
of  religion!"1 

1  Ideality  in  the  Physical  Sciences,  pp.  32,  57,  70,  190,  192. 


APPENDIX.  441 

Associated  with  these  three  great  teachers,  in  labor  and  in 
deep  converse  on  such  inspired  themes,  was  our  late  friend, 
Professor  Theophilus  Parsons,  to  whom  the  public  is  more  in- 
debted for  an  intelligent  apprehension  of  the  philosophy  of  the 
New  Church,  than  to  any  other  student  of  Swedenborg.  In  re- 
ference to  the  naturalistic  tendency  of  the  age,  Mr.  Parsons 
says, — 

"  It  is  to  avert  this  danger  and  arrest  the  decay  of  religious 
belief,  as  well  as  to  lay  the  foundations  of  a  faith  that  will  en- 
dure every  test,  and  last  through  the  ages,  that  this  new  reve- 
lation [through  Swedenborg]  is  given.  Its  work  of  reanimating 
and  refounding  religion,  of  clearing  away  the  ruins  which  cum- 
ber the  old  and  immovable  foundations  of  religion,  and  building 
upon  them  a  new  structure  that  will  endure  every  test,  and  re- 
sist every  assault,  and  abide  the  test  of  time,  must  be  gradual 
and  slow,  and  hardly  perceptible  in  its  early  stages ;  for  it  can 
be  wrought  only  through  reason,  and  reason  working  in  freedom, 
—  and  human  reason  is  in  these  days  greatly  cumbered  and 
darkened.  But  it  is  impossible  for  those  who  have  studied  and 
learned  the  truths  taught  by  Swedenborg  to  doubt  that  this 
work  will  be  done  ;  to  them  the  result  is  inevitable. 

"Already  a  city  is  *  descending  from  God  out  of  heaven,' 
which  'the  glory  of  God  will  lighten,'— « and  the  nations  of 
them  which  are  saved  will  walk  in  the  light  of  it,  and  the  kings 
of  the  earth  bring  their  glory  and  honor  into  it.'  .  .  .  From 
God,  by  the  agency  of  His  angels,  a  new  system  of  truth  and 
doctrine  is  being  given  to  men,  as  a  city  for  their  minds,  where, 
although  entering  each  through  his  own  among  the  many  gates, 
men  may  dwell  together  in  the  peace  of  certainty,  and  in  pos- 
session of  truth  irradiated  with  light  from  the  knowledge  that 
and  how  God  is,  and  is  the  source  and  centre  of  all  being  ;  and 
nations  will  be  saved  from  ignorance  and  sin  by  walking  in  this 
light ;  and  the  kings  of  the  spirit,  or  the  certain  and  sovereign 
truths  of  genuine  knowledge  of  every  kind,  will  bring  their  glory 
and  honor  into  it,  by  acknowledging  that  it  is  the  teacher  and 
the  mother  of  all  wisdom." 1 

1  Outlines  of  the  Philosophy  of  the  New  Church,  p.  31. 


442 


APPENDIX. 


XII.  — PAGE  415. 


WHATEVER  help  is  given  us  to  know  our  Lord  is  given  us 
from  Him,  and  it  is  a  matter  of  indifference,  relatively,  whether 
or  not  we  know  through  whom  it  comes.  But  those  who  know 
that  their  light  has  come  through  Swedenborg  have  a  certain 
duty  and  responsibility.  Recognizing  their  faith  as  given 
through  him,  they  recognize  him  as  divinely  commissioned  to 
instruct  them;  they  recognize  his  teachings  as  not  his,  but  their 
Lord's ;  and  they  acknowledge  the  Lord  as  the  source  of  all  the 
light  that  shines  in  their  minds.  It  then  behooves  them,  first,  to 
let  their  light  so  shine  in  their  works  that  men  may  be  led  to  its 
source ;  second,  to  preserve  and  study  and  publish  to  the  world 
the  teachings  which  have  been  intrusted  to  them.  Led  by 
this  duty,  those  who  have  become  convinced  of  the  reality  of 
Swedenborg's  mission  have  for  the  most  part  felt  called  upon  to 
associate  in  church  fellowship  with  others  of  the  same  convic- 
tion, although  no  instruction  of  this  kind  was  left  by  their  great 
teacher,  and  though  many  most  sincere  receivers  of  his  teach- 
ings have  construed  their  duty  otherwise,  and  have  remained  in 
their  first  church  connection.  This  is  a  practical  question  of 
use,  which  every  one  may  decide  best  for  himself. 

Meanwhile,  as  under  the  influence  of  the  New  Heaven  and 
by  the  permeation  of  the  teachings  of  the  New  Church  on  earth 
the  preaching  in  all  the  Churches  is  rapidly  losing  its  former 
error  and  approaching  nearer  and  nearer  to  the  doctrine  re- 
vealed through  Swedenborg, l  the  distinction  between  what  is 

1  The  remarkable  objection  has  already  been  made  against  the  revelations 
given  through  Swedenborg,  and  will  be  urged  more  and  more,  that  they  are  only 
what  enlightened  common-sense  would  teach,  and  but  carry  farther  what  we 
have  always  known  or  felt.  Let  us  put  with  this  the  following  wise  remarks  of 
Mr.-Matheson  :  — 

"  The  most  powerful  revelation  will  be  that  message  which  speaks  deepest 
home  to  all  that  we  have  known  ;  and  if  Christianity  has  obtained  that  pre- 
eminence, it  is  because  pre-eminently  it  possesses  this  quality.  .  .  .  When 
Christianity  came,  the  world  recognized  it,  not  instantaneously  indeed,  but  yet 
with  wonderful  rapidity  ;  and  the  reason  of  this  recognition,  apart  from  its 
supernatural  power,  was  the  meeting-place  it  presented  to  the  conflicting  views 
of  men.  Around  this  centre  the  most  diverse  beliefs  could  nestle ;  Judaism, 
Orientalism,  the  features  of  the  Western  mythology,  and  the  best  elements  in 
all  the  current  systems  of  philosophy,  all  rested  here."—  Op.  Cit.  vol.  i.  p.  8. 

How  true  this  is  again  of  the  revelations  through  Swedenborg,  none  can 
believe  but  by  experience. 


APPENDIX. 


443 


taught  in  the  professed  New  Church  and  what  is  taught  in 
other  Churches,  is  growing  every  day  less  apparent.  It  is  be- 
coming a  question  to  the  children  of  the  New  Church,  What  is 
the  difference  ?  And  of  what  consequence  is  it  what  Church 
we  belong  to  ?  A  full  appreciation  of  the  duty  and  responsi- 
bility we  have  just  stated  answers  these  questions.  It  must  be 
the  permanent  distinction  between  Churches  in  which  the  reve- 
lations made  through  Swedenborg  are  acknowledged,  and  those 
in  which  they  are  not,  that  in  the  one  the  light  by  which  the 
Sacred  Scriptures  are  unfolded  is  known  to  be  given  from 
Heaven,  and  in  the  other  it  may  be  supposed  to  come  from  the 
intelligence  of  men.  Nor  is  this  distinction  an  intellectual  one 
only.  Whoever  appreciates  the  sweet,  and  not  pangless,  heart- 
change  by  which  Swedenborg  was  led  to  see  all  the  light  that 
came  to  him  as  from  the  Lord  alone,  cannot  fail  to  recognize 
the  deep,  interior  regeneration  effected  by  such  acknowledg- 
ment. 


XIII. 
PORTRAITS   OF   SWEDENBORG. 

THERE  are  several  painted  portraits  of  Swedenborg,  which 
have  been  variously  reproduced  by  the  brush,  in  engravings, 
and  in  photographs.  The  earliest  portrait  is  that  of  the  en- 
graving prefixed  to  the  Principia,  from  we  know  not  what  paint- 
ing, or  drawing.  This  was  pronounced  by  Cuno  still  an  excellent 
likeness  when  Swedenborg  was  forty  years  older.  There  are, 
however,  serious  faults  in  the  drawing,  and  the  likeness  cannot 
be  fully  relied  on. 

Of  the  later  portraits,  the  best  known  is  the  one  presented  by 
Swedenborg  to  the  Royal  Academy  of  Sciences  at  Stockholm, 
still  hanging  in  their  Great  Hall.  It  is  known  to  us  through 
Martin's  engraving,  executed  in  1782,  which  has  been  several 
times  copied, — as  by  Mr.  Joseph  Andrews  for  the  Boston  edition 
of  The  True  Christian  Religion,  and  in  a  lithograph  published 
by  Dr.  J.  F.  I.  Tafel.  It  is  a  well-balanced  face,  mild  and  amia- 
ble, but  rather  feeble  in  expression. 

The  best  likeness,  in  the  judgment  of  the  Rev.  R.  L.  Tafel, 
who  has  had  good  opportunities  for  comparison,  is  an  oil  paint- 


444 


APPENDIX. 


ing  that  was  found  hanging  in  Swedenborg's  bedchamber.  This 
was  imported  into  America  by  Mr.  S.  A.  Schoff,  and  after- 
wards came  into  the  hands  of  the  Trustees  of  the  Central  Con- 
vention, of  whom  the  Rev.  W.  H.  Benade,  of  Philadelphia,  is 
the  survivor.  Its  features  are  also  well  known  through  photo- 
graphs, but  it  has  not  been  very  popular  by  reason  of  a  certain 
hardness  of  expression, — in  this  differing  alike  from  all  other 
portraits,  and  from  the  uniform  description  of  Swedenborg's  ap- 
pearance. Yet  there  is  a  certain  honesty  and  strength  of  char- 
acter expressed  which  give  a  probability  of  likeness. 

The  best  painting  and  most  agreeable  portrait  is  that  of 
which  we  are  kindly  allowed  to  present  Mr.  Schoff's  excellent 
engraving,  for  our  frontispiece.  The  original  painting  was  made 
for  Swedenborg's  good  friend,  Count  Hopken,  probably  by 
Kraft.  It  is  now  in  the  National  Gallery  of  Gripsholm.  Our 
engraving  was  made  for  the  Board  of  Publications  of  the  Gene- 
ral Convention,  and  for  the  American  N.  C.  Tract  and  Publi- 
cation Society,  and  is  to  be  found  also  in  the  Compendium  of 
Swedenborg's  Theological  Writings,  by  the  Rev.  Samuel  M. 
Warren.  It  is  from  a  copy  of  the  Kraft  portrait  in  the  posses- 
sion of  the  American  Swedenborg  Printing  and  Publishing 
Society,  New  York.  Another  copy  is  in  the  possession  of  the 
Rev.  James  Reed,  Boston. 

Of  other  portraits  of  less  authenticity  we  will  mention  only 
the  two  medals  struck  in  Swedenborg's  honor, —  the  one  by 
the  Swedish  Academy,  and  the  other  by  the  Royal  Academy 
of  Sciences  of  Stockholm,  which  give  a  marked  profile,  with 
prominent  Roman  nose, —  we  know  not  on  what  authority. 


XIV. 
WRITINGS    OF    SWEDENBORG. 

THE  following  is  a  chronological  catalogue  of  the  writings  of 
Swedenborg,  in  condensed  form,  from  the  Rev.  R.  L.  Tafel's 
Documents,  preserving  his  numeration.  "Photolith"  means 
photolithographed  by  him  in  1870. 

I.  Select  Sentences  of  L.  Annaeus  Seneca  and  Pub.  Syrus 
Mimus  ;  with  notes.  (Academical  Thesis.)  62  pp.,  8vo. 
Upsal,  1709. 


APPENDIX.  445 

2.  Ecclesiastes  xii.,  in  Latin  verse.     Skara,  1709. 

3.  Latin  verses  in  honor  of  Sophia  E.  Brenner.     2  pp.,  4to. 

1710. 

4.  The  Northern  Muse  sporting  with  the  deeds  of  Heroes  and 

Heroines.    112  pp.,    i6mo.    Greifswalde,   1715- — Second 
edition  (including  Nos.  3,  6,  34) ;  Dr.  J.  F.  I.  Tafel.   1845. 

5.  Heliconian  Sport,  or  Miscellaneous  Poems.     16  pp.,    4to. 

Skara,  1716. —  Second  edition,   Stockholm,  1826. — Third 
edition;  Dr.  Tafel.     1841. 

6.  A  Sapphic  Poem,  celebrating  my  dearest  father's  Birth-day. 

Skara,  1716. 

7.  Daedalus   Hyperboreus ;    six  nos.     154   pp.,  410.     Upsal, 

1716-1718. 

8.  Information   concerning  the    Tinware  of   Stiernsund.     In 

Swedish,  4  pp.,  4to.     Stockholm,  1717. 

9.  Importance  of  an  Astronomical   Observatory  in  Sweden. 

In  Swedish,  4  pp.,  folio,  MS.     1717. 

10.  On  the  Causes  of  Things.    4  pp.,  4to.     1717. 

11.  New  Theory  of  the  End  of  the  Earth.     In  Swedish,  38  pp., 

MS.     1717- 

12.  Mode  of  Aiding  Commerce  and  Manufactures.    In  Swedish, 

6pp.,  4to,  MS.     1717. 

13.  Establishment  of  Salt-works  in  Sweden.    In  Swedish,  4  pp., 

folio,  MS.     1717. 

14.  Nature  of  Fire  and  Colors.     In  Swedish,  6  pp.,  folio,  MS. 

1717. 

15.  Algebra:  in  ten  books.    In  Swedish,  135  pp.,  i6mo.   Upsal, 

1718. 

16.  Geometrical   and    Algebraical    Matters.      (A    treatise   on 

Higher  Mathematics.)     169  pp.,  4to,  MS.     Photolith  by 
R.  L.  Tafel. 

17.  Attempt  to  find  Longitude  by  the  Moon.     In  Swedish,  38 

pp.,  8vo.     Upsal,  1718. —  Second  edition  in  Latin,  Am- 
sterdam, 1721,  No.  30. 

18.  On  the  Motion  and  Station  of  the  Earth  and  Planets.     In 

Swedish,  40  pp.,  I2mo.     Skara,  1718. 

19.  The  great  Depth  of  Water  and  strong  Tides  of  the  Prime- 

val World.     In  Swedish,  40  pp.,  i6mo.     Upsal,  1719. 

20.  Swedish   Iron  Furnaces.     In  Swedish,  84  pp.,   4to,  MS. 

1719. 

21.  Anatomy,  showing  our  moving  and  living  Force  to  consist 

of  Tremulations.     In  Swedish,  48  pp.,  4to,  MS.     1719. 

22.  New  Directions  for  discovering  Metallic  Veins.    14  pp.,  4to, 

MS.     1719. 


446  APPENDIX. 

23.  Docks,  Canal-locks,  and  Salt-works.      In  Swedish,  8  pp., 

4to,  MS.     1719. 

24.  Regulating  our  Coins  and  Measures.     (Decimal  System.) 

In  Swedish,  8  pp.,  4to.  Stockholm,  1719.— Second  edi- 
tion, 1795. 

25.  Rise  and  Fall  of  Lake  Wener.      In  Swedish,  7  pp.,  folio, 

MS.     1720. 

26.  First  Principles  of  Natural  Things.   560  pp.,  4to,  MS.   1720. 

Photolith. 

27.  Letter  to  Jacob  a  Melle.     4  pp.,  Acta  Lit.,  Sueciae.     1721. 

28.  Sketch  [Prodromus]  of  First  Principles  of  Natural  Things ; 

199  pp.,  i6mo.  Amsterdam,  1721. —  Second  edition,  Am- 
sterdam, 1727.  —  Third  edition,  Hildburghausen,  1754. — 
English  edition,  entitled  "  Some  Specimens  of  a  Work  on 
the  Principles  of  Chemistry,"  etc.  (including  Nos.  29-31); 
London,  1847. 

29.  New  Observations   and  Discoveries  about  Iron  and  Fire. 

56pp.,  1 6  mo.   Amsterdam,  1721. —  Second  edition,  1727. 

30.  New    Method  of  finding  Longitudes  (No.   17  in  conciser 

form).  29  pp.,  8vo.  Amsterdam,  1721. —  Second  edition, 
1727.  —  Third  edition,  Hildburghausen,  1754.  —  Fourth 
edition,  Amsterdam,  1766. 

31.  Construction  of  Docks  and  Dykes,  and  Measurement  of 

Vessels.  21  pp.,  8vo.  Amsterdam,  1721. —  Second  edi- 
tion, Amsterdam,  1727. 

32.  New  Rules  for  maintaining  Heat  in  Rooms.     3  pp.,  in  Acta 

Lit.  Sueciae.     1722. 

33.  Miscellaneous  Observations  on  Natural  Things.     Parts  L- 

III.,  164  pp.,  i6mo;  Leipsic,  1722.  Part  IV.,  56  pp., 
i6mo  ;  Schiffbeck,  1722  (?).  Twelve  chapters  photolith. 
—  English  edition  entitled  "Miscellaneous  Observations 
connected  with  the  Physical  Sciences"  (including  No. 
35);  London,  1847. 

34.  Fable  of  the  Love  and  Metamorphosis  of  the  Muse  Urania. 

8  pp.,  4to.     Schiffbeck,  1722. 

35.  Power  of  the  Deep  Waters  of  the  Deluge.     3  pp.,  in  Acta 

Lit  Sueciae,  1722. 

36.  Rise  and  Fall  of  Swedish  Currency.    In  Swedish,  20  pp.,  4to. 

Stockholm,  1722. —  Second  edition,  1769. 

37.  The  Magnet  and  its  Qualities.     299  pp.,  4to,  MS.     1722. 

38.  The  genuine  Treatment  of  Metals.     Nineteen  Parts  were 

projected,  if  not  written,  of  which  four  are  preserved  in 
1481  pp.,  4to.  1723. 

39.  The  Motion  of  the  Elements  in  general.    5  pp.,  4to,  MS. 

I724-I733- 


APPENDIX. 


447 


40.  Notes  for  the  Principia.     13  pp.,  4to,  MS.    1724-1733. 

41.  The  Mechanism  of  the  Soul  and  Body.     16  pp.,  4to,  MS. 

1724-1733. 

42.  Comparison  of  Wolff's  Ontology  and  Cosmology  with  our 

Principia.  Photolith  by  R.  L.  Tafel.  49  pp.,  410,  MS. 
1724-1733. 

43.  Observations  on  the  Human  Body.     6  pp.,  4to,  MS.    1724- 

1733- 

44.  Itinerary  for  1733-1734.    80  pp.,  4to,  MS.    Dr.  Tafel.   1840. 

Photolith. 

45.  Philosophical  and  Mineral  Works.    3  vols.  folio.    Dresden 

and  Leipsic,  1734.  Vol.  I.,  Principia,  452  pp.  Vol.  II., 
On  Iron,  386  pp.  Vol.  III.,  On  Copper,  534  pp. 

46.  Sketch  of  a  Philosophical  Argument  on  the  Infinite.    270 

pp.,  Svo.     Dresden  and  Leipsic,  1734. 

47.  Epitome  of  the  Principia.   27  pp.,  4to,  MS.   1734.  Photolith. 

48.  Fragments  of  three  treatises  on  the  Brain;     1004  pp.,  4to, 

M3.     1735-1738,  Photolith.— English  edition,  1882. 

49.  Description  of  my  Travels.     40  pp.,  4to,  MS.      1736-1739. 

Dr.  Tafel,  1840  and  1844.     Photolith. 

50.  Way  to  the  Knowledge  of  the  Soul.  5  pp.,  4to,  MS.     1738. 

London,  1846. —  In  English,  "Posthumous  Tracts."  Lon- 
don. 

51.  Faith  and  Good  Works.     10  pp.,  4to,  MS.     1738.    London, 

1846.  —  In  English,   "Posthumous  Tracts."     London. 

52.  Economy  of  the  Animal  Kingdom.    Part  I.,  388  pp.,  4to, 

London  and  Amsterdam,  1740.  Part  II.,  194  pp.,  4to, 
London  and  Amsterdam,  1741. —  English  edition,  two 
vols.,  Svo,  London,  1845. 

53.  Characteristic  and  Mathematical  Philosophy  of  Universals, 

5  pp.,  folio,  MS.     Photolith. 

54.  On  the  Bones  of  the  Skull  and  Ossification.     49  pp.,  folio, 

MS.    1740.     Photolith. 

55.  Corpuscular  Philosophy  in   Brief.    I  p.,  folio,  MS.     1740. 

Photolith. 

56.  Anatomy  of  all  the  Parts  of  the  Brain.    636  pp.,  folio,  MS. 

1740.     Photolith. 

57.  Introduction   to  Rational  Psychology.    366  pp.,  4to,   MS. 

1740-1741 ;  Photolith. —  A  portion  published  by  Dr.  Wil- 
kinson, as  the  Third  Part  of  the  "Economy."  London, 
1847. 

58.  Declination  of  Magnetic  Needle.    (Controversy  in  Academy 

of  Sciences.)    1740-1741.    Tafel's  Documents,  vol.  i.  pp. 


448  APPENDIX. 

59.  Introduction  to  Rational  Psychology.    Part  II.   9  pp.,  folio, 

MS.     1741.     Photolith. 

60.  Hieroglyphic  Key  of  Natural  and  Spiritual  Mysteries.    48 

pp.,  4to,  MS.  174!'  London,  1784. —  English  edition, 
London,  1792. —  Second  English  edition,  London,  1847. 

61.  Comparison  of  the  Three   Systems  concerning  the  Inter- 

course of  the  Soul  and  Body.  Fragment,  44  pp.,  4to. 
1741.  London,  1846.— English  edition,  London,  1847. 

62.  The  Red  Blood.     24  pp.,  4to,  MS.     1741.     London,  1846. 

—  English  edition,  London,  1847. 

63.  The  Animal  Spirit.  24  pp.,  4to,  MS.    1741.    London,  1846. 

—  English  edition,  London,  1847. 

64.  Sensation  of  the  Body.     11  pp.,  4to,  MS.     1741.     London, 

1846. — English  edition,  London,  1847. 

65.  Origin  and  Propagation  of  the  Soul.    6  pp.,  4to,  MS.    1741. 

London,  1846. —  English  edition,  London,  1847. 

66.  Action.     30  pp.,  4to,  MS.   1741.     London,  1846. —  English 

edition,  London,  1847. 

67.  Rational  Psychology.    234  pp.,  folio.  MS.     1741-1742.      As 

Part  VII.  of  The  Animal  Kingdom:  on  the  Soul.  By 
Dr.  Tafel,  1849.  Photolith. 

68.  Ontology.     21  pp.,  folio,  MS.  1742.     Photolith. 

69.  Anatomy  of  the  Human  Body.     II.  and  III.    269  pp.,  folio, 

MS.  1742-1743.  Part  II.  as  Part  VI.,  section  2,  of  The 
Animal  Kingdom.  By  Dr.  Tafel,  1849.  —  Part  II.,  in 
English,  as  The  Generative  Organs.  London,  1852. 
Photolith. 

70.  Swammerdam's  Book  of  Nature.   79  pp.,  folio,  MS.    1743. 

Photolith. 

71.  The  Animal  Kingdom.    Part  I.    438  pp.,  4to.    Hague,  1744. 

Part  II.  286  pp.,  4to.  Hague,  1744.  — English  edition, 
Dr.  J.  J.  G.  Wilkinson,  2  vols.  London,  1843-1844. 

72.  Dreams.     In   Swedish,     101  pp.,   i6mo,    MS.     1743-1744. 

Stockholm,  1859. 

73.  Sense.     200  pp.,  folio,  MS.     1744.      As  Part  IV.  of  The 

Animal  Kingdom.     Dr.  Tafel,  1848.     Photolith. 

74.  Muscles  of  the  Face  and  Abdomen.  13  pp.,  folio,  MS.  1744. 

Photolith. 

75.  Physical  and  Optical  Experiments.    6  pp.,  folio,  MS.    1744. 

Photolith. 

76.  The  Brain.     43  pp.,  folio,  MS.    1744.     Photolith. 

77.  The  Animal  Kingdom.     Part  III.     169  pp.,  4to.     London, 

1745-  —  English  edition  of  The  Animal  Kingdom,  in  Vol. 
II.  London,  1844. 


APPENDIX.  449 

78.  The  Worship  and  Love  of  God.    Part  I.  120  pp.,  4to.    Lon- 

don, 1745.    Part  II.  24  pp.,  4to.    London,  1745.— English 
edition,  London,  1801. 

79.  The  Worship  and  Love  of  God.    Part  III.  9  pp.,  4to.    1745. 

Photolith. 

80.  History  of  Creation  given  by  Moses.    1745.   As  Adversaria, 

25  pp.,  in  Vol.  I.     Dr.  Tafel.     1847. 

81.  The  Messiah  about  to  Come.     32  pp.,  folio,  MS.    1745.   As 

Adversaria,  in  Vol.  I.     Dr.  Tafel.     1847. 

82.  Explication  of  the  historical  Word  of  the  Old  Testament. 

169  pp.,  folio,  MS.     1745-1746.     As  Adversaria.      Dr. 
Tafel.     1842-1847. 

83.  Biblical  Index  of  Historical  Books  of  the  Old  Testament. 

581  pp.,  folio,  MS.    1746.    To  letter  D  published  by  Dr. 
Tafel.     1859. 

84.  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah  Explained;   107  pp.,  folio,  MS.    1746- 

1747.     As  Adversaria,  Part  IV.,  by  Dr.  Tafel. 

85.  Notes  on  Jeremiah  and  Lamentations.    MS.  Bible  Margins. 

1746-1747.     Photolith. 

86.  Biblical  Index  of  Isaiah  and  part  of  Jeremiah  and  Genesis. 

1746-1747.     300  pp.,  MS. 

87.  Memorable  Things.    Part  I.,  MS.     1747.     Spiritual  Diary 

(nos.  1-148).     Dr.  Tafel. 

88.  Fragments  of  Notes  on  Genesis  and  Exodus.     MS.  Bible 

Margins,  1747.     Photolith. 

89.  Fragments  of  Notes  on  the  Prophets.     MS.  Bible  Margins, 

1747.     Photolith. 

90.  Names  in  the  Sacred  Scripture.     275  pp.,  folio,  MS.     To 

letter  D  published  by  Dr.  Tafel,  1859.      In  Part  as  Sup- 
plement of  Biblical  Index.     London,  1873. 

91.  Biblical  Index  of  Old  Testament,  except  Genesis.     636  pp., 

folio.  MS.     1747-1748.    Dr.  Tafel  and  Dr.  Kahl.    1859- 
1868. 

92.  Biblical  Index  of  New  Testament.      435  pp.,  folio,  MS. 

1747-1748.     Dr.  Tafel  and  Dr  Kahl.     1859-1868. 

93.  Memorable  Things.    Part  II.     516  pp.,  folio.     1747-1748. 

Spiritual  Diary  >  Part   I.  Vols.   I.  and  II.      Dr.  Tafel. 
1844-1845. 

94.  Heavenly  Arcana  in  Genesis.     Five  volumes,  4to.    London, 

1747-1758. 

95.  Heavenly  Arcana  in  Exodus.     Three  volumes,  4to.     Lon- 

don, 1747-1758. 

96.  Memorable  Things.     Part  III.,  MS.     1748-1750.      Spirit- 

ual Diary,  Pzrt  II.     Dr.  Tafel.     1843. 
29 


450 


APPENDIX. 


97.  Memorable  Things.   Part  IV.    134  pp.,  i6mo,  MS.    1750- 

1751.     Spiritual  Diary,  Part  IV.     Dr.  Tafel.     1843. 

98.  Index  to  Notes  and  Memorable  Things.    988  pp.,  folio,  MS. 

1748-1751.  Spiritual  Diary,  Part  V.     Dr.  Tafel.    1846- 

1847- 
99.*  Memorable  Things.  Part  V.  602  pp.,  8vo,  MS.  1752-1765. 

Spiritual  Diary,  Part  III. 
99.*  Index  to  Memorable  Things.    Parts  III.-V.    100  pp.,  folio, 

MS.      1752-1765.      Spiritual   Diary,    Part    VI.      Dr. 

Tafel. 

100.  Index  to  Arcana  Ccelestia.     1749-1756.     London,  1815. 

101.  Heaven  and  Hell.     272  pp.,  4to.     London,  1758. 

102.  The  White  Horse.   1757-1758.    23  pp.,  4to.    London,  1758. 

103.  The  New   Jerusalem  and  its  Heavenly  Doctrine.     1757- 

1758.     1 56  pp.,  4to.     London,  1758. 

104.  The  Earths  in  our  Solar  System  and  in  the  Starry  Heaven. 

1756-1758.     72  pp.,  4to.     London,  1758. 

105.  The  Last  Judgment.     1757-1758.     55  PP->  4*o.      London, 

1758. 

106.  The  Apocalypse  Explained.      Four  volumes,  1992  pp.,  4to, 

MS.     1757-1759-      Four  volumes,  London,  1785-1789. 
Photolith. 

107.  The  Athanasian  Creed.    42  pp.,  8vo,  MS.    1759.    London, 

1840. 

108.  The  Lord.     7  pp.,  8vo,  MS.     1759.     London,  1840. 

109.  Summary  Exposition  of  the  Prophets  and  Psalms.     1759- 

1760.     Dr.  Tafel.     1860. 

no.  Papers  for  Swedish  Diet.  100  pp.,  folio,  MS.  1760.  R. 
L.  Tafel's  Documents  (nos.  174-196).  1875. 

in.  The  Last  Judgment.  100  pp.,  folio,  MS.  1760.  Spiritual 
Diary,  Part  VII.  App.  I.  Dr.  Tafel,  1846.  Photo- 
lith. 

112.  The  Spiritual  World.    30  pp.,  folio,  MS.     1760.    Spiritual 

Diary,  Part  VII.  App.  I.   Dr.  Tafel,  1846.     Photolith. 

113.  The  Sacred  Scripture.      MS.      1761.     Spiritual  Diary, 

Part  VII.  App.  2.     Dr.  Tafel,  1854.     Photolith. 

114.  The  Precepts  of  the  Decalogue.     6  pp.,  8vo,  MS.  1761. 

Spiritual  Diary,  Part  VII.,  pp.  38-41.  Dr.  Tafel,  1846. 
Photolith. 

115.  On  Faith.     2  pp.,  folio,  MS.    1761.    Spiritual  Diary,  Part 

VII.     App.  i.     Dr.  Tafel,  1846.     Photolith. 

116.  Doctrine  of  the  Lord.     64  pp.,  4to.     Amsterdam,  1763. 

117.  Doctrine  of  the  Sacred  Scripture.     54pp.,4to.     Amster- 

dam, 1763. 


APPENDIX. 


451 


118.  Doctrine  of  Life.    36  pp.,  4to.    Amsterdam,  1763. 

1 19.  Doctrine  of  Faith.     23  pp.,  4to.     Amsterdam,  1763. 

1 20.  Continuation  concerning  the  Last  Judgment.     28  pp.,  4to. 

Amsterdam,  1763. 

121.  The  Mode  of  Inlaying  Marble.      Translation  for  Royal 

Academy  of  Sciences,  Stockholm,  June,    1763.     R.  L. 
Tafel's  Documents  (no.  202). 

122.  The  Divine  Love.    22pp.,  folio,  MS.     1762-1763. 

123.  The  Divine  Wisdom.     46  pp.,  folio,  MS.     1763.    Both  the 

above  in  Appendix  to  The  Apocalypse  Explained.   1789. 
Photolith. 

124.  Angelic  Wisdom  concerning  the   Divine   Love  and   the 

Divine  Wisdom.     151  pp.,  4to.     Amsterdam,  1763. 

125.  Angelic  Wisdom  concerning  the  Divine  Providence.     214 

pp.,  4to.     Amsterdam,  1764. 

126.  Doctrine  of  Charity.     49  pp.,  folio,  MS.   1764.     London, 

1840.     Photolith. 

127.  The  Apocalypse  Revealed.     629  pp.,  4to.     Amsterdam, 

766. 

128.  New  Method  of  finding  Longitude.     8  pp.,  4to.     Amster- 

dam, 1766. 

129.  On  the  Horse  and  Hieroglyphics.     MS.     As  Appendix  to 

no.  1 02,  and  in  R.  L.  Tafel's  Documents  (no.  300). 

130.  Index  to  The  Apocalypse  Revealed.      75    pp.,  4to,  MS. 

1766.     London,  1815. 

131.  Five  Memorable  Relations.      13  pp.,   folio,  MS.      1766. 

Spiritual  Diary,  Part  VII.  App.  i.     Dr.  Tafel.     1846. 

132.  Conversations  with  Angels.  3  pp.,  folio,  MS.  1766.  Spirit- 

ual Diary,  Part  II.  App.  i.     Dr.  Tafel.     1846.    Photo- 
lith. 

133.  First  Treatise    on    Conjugial    Love.      MS.      1766-1767. 

Known  only  by  Indexes,  covering  two  thousand  num- 
bers, which  have  been  photolithographed. 

134.  Memorable  Things  on  Marriage.    19  pp.,  folio,  MS.    1767. 

Spiritual  Diary,  Part  VII.    App.  4.     Dr.  Tafel.     1854. 

135.  Delights  of  Wisdom   concerning  Conjugial  Love.     1767- 

1768.     328  pp.,  4to.     Amsterdam,  1768. 

136.  The  Natural  and  the  Spiritual  Sense  of  the  Word.     MS. 

1768.     Sent   to    Oetinger.     R.  L.   Tafel's   Documents 
(no.  238). 

137.  Justification  and   Good  Works.     MS.      1768.     Spiritual 

Diary,  Part  VII.,  section  5.     Dr.  Tafel.     1854. 

138.  Sketch  of  the  Doctrine  of  the  New  Church.     MS.     1768. 

Spiritual  Diary,  Part  VII.     App.  i.     Dr.  Tafel.    1846. 


452  APPENDIX. 

139.  Brief  Exposition  of    the  Doctrine  of  the   New  Church. 

1768-1769.     67  pp.,  4to.     Amsterdam,  1769. 

140.  Intercourse  between  the  Soul  and  the  Body.      London, 

1769. 

141.  Answer  to  a  Letter  from  a  Friend  [Rev.  T.  Hartley].  3  pp., 

4to.     London,  1769. 

142.  Nine  Questions  concerning  the  Trinity,  and  Answers.    6 

pp.,  4to,  MS.     1769.     London,  1775. 

143.  Canons  of  the   New  Church.      45  pp.,  folio,  MS.   1769. 

London,  1840. 

144.  Confirming   Passages  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments. 

1769.  39  pp.,  folio,  MS.     Dr.  Tafel.     1845. 

145.  The  True  Christian  Religion.     541  pp.,  4to.     Amsterdam, 

1771- 

146.  Notes  for  The  True  Christian  Religion.   23  pp.,  folio,  MS. 

1770.  R.  L.  Tafel's  Documents  (no.  302). 

147.  Ecclesiastical  History  of  the  New  Church.  I  p.,  folio,  MS. 

1771.  R.  L.  Tafel's  Documents  (no.  301). 

148.  Summary  of  the  Coronis  to  The  True  Christian  Religion. 

Spiritual  Diary,  Part  VII.  App.     Dr.   Tafel.      1846. 
5  pp.,  folio,  MS.    1771.— English  edition,  London,  1807. 

149.  Coronis,  or  Appendix,   to  The  True  Christian    Religion. 

MS.     1771.     London,  1780. — English  editions,  London 
and  Manchester,  1810. 

150.  The  Consummation  of  the  Age.     15  pp.,  folio,  MS.    1771. 

Spiritual  Diary,  Part  VII.  App.  i.     Dr.  Tafel.     1846. 

ABBREVIATIONS  USED  IN  THIS   BOOK. 

A.  C Arcana  Ccelestia. 

A.  E The  Apocalypse  Explained. 

A.  R The  Apocalypse  Revealed. 

Adv Adversaria. 

C.  L Conjugial  Love. 

D.  L.  &  W The  Divine  Love  and  Wisdom. 

D.  p The  Divine  Providence. 

H.  D.     .     .      The  New  Jerusalem  and  its  Heavenly  Doctrine. 

H.  &  H Heaven  and  Hell. 

Int.  S.  &  B Intercourse  of  the  Soul  and  Body. 

L.  J The  Last  Judgment. 

S.  D Spiritual  Diary. 

S.  S. The  Doctrine  of  the  Sacred  Scripture. 

T.  C.  R The  True  Christian  Religion. 


APPENDIX.  453 

XV. 
PRINCIPAL  DATES   IN   SWEDENBORG'S   LIFE. 

1688.  January  29.  Born  at  Stockholm,  and  lived  there  till 
1692. 

1692.  Spring:  family  removed  to  Vingaker;  November,  to 
Upsal. 

1703.  At  Upsal.  The  family  removed  to  Brunsbo.  Sister 
Anna  married  :  perhaps  Emanuel  remained  with  her  at  Upsal. 

1709.  Graduated  at  Upsal;  went  home  to  Brunsbo.  Pub- 
lished thesis. 

1710. -i  713.  At  London  pursuing  studies. 

1713.  At  Utrecht  and  Paris  fora  year. 

1714.  September,  at  Rostock. 

1715.  April,  at  Grief swalde,  publishing  Camena  Borea. 

1715.  Returned  home  ;  worked  on  the  Dadalus  and  Algebra. 

1716.  Appointed  Assessor  Extraordinary. 

1717.  Received  in  the  College  of  Mines. 
1716-1718.  Worked  with  Polhem  for  Charles  XII. 
1719-1720.  Pursues  studies. 

1721.  Spring:    to  Holland  and   Leipsic    publishing  Miscel- 
laneous Observations,  and  studying  metals. 

1722.  Returns  home,  and  tries  to  introduce  improved  methods 
of  working  copper. 

1723.  At  the  College  of  Mines,  in  regular  attendance. 

1724.  July  15,  appointed  Ordinary  Assessor;    regularly  em- 
ployed till  1733. 

1733.  May,  to  Leipsic,  to  publish  Opera  Philosophica. 

1734.  July,  at  the  College  of  Mines  and  the  Diet,  regularly 
till  1736. 

1736.  July,  went  to  Paris  to  pursue  anatomical  studies. 

1738.  March  12,  left  Paris  for  Italy,  on  same  studies. 

1739.  May,  arrived  again  in  Paris.    December,  finished  the 
Economy  of  the  Animal  Kingdom,  and  went  to  Amsterdam  to 
publish  it. 

1740.  November,  at  the  College  of  Mines  till  1743. 

1743.  July,  went  to  Amsterdam  and  the  Hague,  to  print  The 
Animal  Kingdom.    Had  remarkable  dreams  in  the  autumn,  and 
afterwards. 

1744.  May,  arrived  in  London.     First  revelation,  according 
to  Gjorwell. 


454 


APPENDIX. 


1745.  April,  first  open  vision.  Wrote  The  Worship  and  Love 
of  God.  August,  returned  to  Stockholm,  and  was  at  the  College 
of  Mines  till  July,  1747;  also  writing  A dversaria  and  Biblical 
Index.  Retired  from  the  College. 

1 747.  February,  began  the  Spiritual  Diary.   August,  arrived 
in  Holland.     Celestial  change  of  state.     Wrote  the  first  volume 
of  the  Arcana  Ccelestia. 

1748.  October,  arrived  in  London  to  publish  the  "Arcana." 

1749.  Summer:  in  Amsterdam;   to  Aix-la-Chapelle  for  the 
winter. 

1750.  Spring:  in  Stockholm.      Continued  the  "Arcana"  till 
1758.     The  "  Diary  "  was  continued  till  1765. 

1755-1762.  Sundry  Memorials  to  the  Diet.  Wrote  The  Apoca- 
lypse Explained. 

1 762 .  To  Amsterdam.    Published  the  Four  Leading  Doctrines. 

1763.  At  Amsterdam.     Published  The  Divine  Love  and  Wis- 
dom and  The  Divine  Providence. 

1764.  At  Stockholm. 

1765.  Summer:  at  Amsterdam,  to  publish   The  Apocalypse 
Revealed. 

1766.  Spring:  to  London;   September,  to  Stockholm. 

1768.  Spring:    to  Amsterdam,  to  publish  Conjugial  Love. 

1769.  March,  at  Amsterdam;  published   "Brief  Exposition." 
April,  to  Paris  and  London ;    October,  to  Stockholm. 

1770.  July,  to  Amsterdam,   to  publish   The  True   Christian 
Religion. 

1771.  July,  at  Amsterdam;  finished  The  True  Christian  Re- 
ligion, and  went  to  London. 

1772.  March  29,  died  in  London. 


XVI. 
BIOGRAPHIES  OF  SWEDENBORG. 

1 769.  Autobiography  in  a  letter  to  the  Rev.  Thomas  Hartley, 
See  p.  323. 

1772.  Eulogy  before  the  Royal  Academy  of  Sciences,  Stock- 
holm, by  Samuel  Sandels.  See  p.  404. 

1790.  Life  of  the  Hon.  Emanuel  Sivedenborg,  in  New-Jeru- 
salem Magazine.  London. 

1806.  Assessor  Swedenborgs  Life,  in  Danish.  Copenhagen, 
by  S.  H.  Walden. 


APPENDIX. 


455 


1820.  Emanuel  Swedenborg,  in  a  Journal  of  Biography. 
Upsal.  See  R.  L.  Tafel's  Documents,  no.  288. 

1827.  Biography  of  Swedenborg,  by  the  Rev.  D.  G.  Goyder. 
pp.  40. 

1831.  Life  of  Emanuel  Swedenborg,  by  Nathaniel  Hobart. 
Boston,  pp.  1 88. 

1839-1845.  Collection  of  Dociiments  respecting  the  Life  and 
Character  of  Emanuel  Swedenborg,  by  Dr.  J.  F.  I.  Tafel.  Tu- 
bingen.—  English  editions  published  in  Manchester,  1841, 1855. 
New  York,  by  Professor  Bush,  1847. 

1840.  Swedenborg,  in  the  Penny-Cyclopaedia,  by  Dr.  J.  J.  G. 
Wilkinson. 

1841.  Life  of  Swedenborg,  by  the  Rev.  B.  F.  Barrett.    New 
York.     pp.  1 60. 

1849.  Biographical  Sketch  of  Emanuel  Swedenborg,  by  Elihu 
Rich.  London  pp.  192. 

1849.  Emanuel  Swedenborg;  a  Biography,  by  James  John 
Garth  Wilkinson.  London,  pp.  370. 

1849.  Emanuel  Swedenborg,  in  Biographical  Lexicon.  Upsal. 
pp.  60. 

1851.  Life  of  Emanuel  Swedenborg,  by  Nathaniel  Hobart; 
third  edition  ;  prepared  by  Benjamin  Worcester.    Boston,     pp. 
280. 

1852.  Memoir  of  Swedenborg,  by  the  Rev.  O.  Prescott  Hiller, 
in  his  "  Gems  from  the  Writings  of  Swedenborg." 

1854.  Swedenborg;  a  Biography  and  Exposition,  by  Edwin 
Paxton  Hood.  London,  pp.  402. 

1854.  Life  of  Swedenborg,  by  the  Rev.  W.  M.  Fernald,  first 
published  in  his  Compendium,  pp.  128. 

1856.  Life  of  Swedenborg  for  Youth,  by  Mrs.  S.  P.  Doughty. 
Boston. 

1856.  Swedenborg;  His  Life  and  Writings,  by  William 
White.  London. 

1860.  Emanuel  Swedenborg,  for  the  Swedish  Academy,  in 
Memorial,  by  Bernhard  von  Beskors. 

1863.  Emanuel  de  Swedenborg,  sa  Vie,  ses  Ecrits,  etc.,  by 
Y  M.  Matter,  Hon.  Counsellor  of  the  University.  Paris,  pp.  436. 

1867.  Memoir  of  Swedenborg,  by  the  Rev.  O.  P.  Hiller. 
Chicago,  pp.  72. 

1867.  Emanuel  Swedenborg;  his  Life  and   Writings,   by 
William  White.     London.     2  vols.     pp.  1278. 

1868.  The  same  in  one  volume. 

1872.   Emanuel  Swedenborg;    an  Outline  of  his  Life  and 


>c 


456  APPENDIX. 

Writings,  by  a  "Bible  Student"  (the  Rev.  John  Hyde).     Lon- 
don,   pp.  1 20. 

1875.  Emanuel  Swedenborg,  in  Tales  from  Swedish  History, 
by  A.  Fryxell.     Stockholm,    pp.  120. 

1875-1877.  Documents  concerning  the  Life  and  Character  of 
Emanuel  Swedenborg,  by  the  Rev.  R.  L.  Tafel ;  published  by 
the  Swedenborg  Society.  London.  3  vols.,  royal  octavo,  pp. 
2107.  [This  is  a  work  of  great  labor,  conducted  under  extra- 
ordinary facilities;  it  is  well-nigh  exhaustive,  and  indispensable 
to  the  student  of  its  subject.] 

1876.  Emanuel  Sivedenborg,  a  Biographical  notice.    Paris. 

1877.  Emanuel  Swedenborg,   the  Spiritual  Columbus,   by 
U.  S.  E.     [Speirs.]     London,     pp.  216. 

1882.  The  Man  and  his  Mission,  by  the  Rev.  B.  F.  Barrett, 
pp.  60, 

1883.  Emanuel  Swedenborg,  The  Man  and  his  Works,  by 
Edmund  Swift,  Jr.     London,     pp.  218.    [A  clear  and  excellent 
summary  of  facts  about  Swedenborg  and  his  writings.] 


456 


APPENDIX. 


Writings,  by  a  "Bible  Student"  (the  Rev.  John  Hyde).     Lon- 
don,   pp.  120. 

1875.  Emanuel  Swedenborg,  in  Tales  from  Swedish  History, 
by  A.  Fryxell.     Stockholm,     pp.  120. 

1875-1877.  Documents  concerning  the  Life  and  Character  of 
Emanuel  Swedenborg,  by  the  Rev.  R.  L.  Tafel ;  published  by 
the  Swedenborg  Society.  London.  3  vols.,  royal  octavo,  pp. 
2107.  [This  is  a  work  of  great  labor,  conducted  under  extra- 
ordinary facilities;  it  is  well-nigh  exhaustive,  and  indispensable 
to  the  student  of  its  subject] 

1876.  Emanuel  Swedenborg,  a  Biographical  notice.    Paris. 

1877.  Emanuel  Swedenborg,   the  Spiritual  Columbus,   by 
U.  S.  E.     [Speirs.]     London,     pp.  216. 

1882.  The  Man  and  his  Mission,  by  the  Rev.  B.  F.  Barrett, 
pp.  60. 

1883.  Emanuel  Swedenborg,  The  Man  and  his  Works,  by 
Edmund  Swift,  Jr.     London,     pp.  218.    [A  clear  and  excellent 
summary  of  facts  about  Swedenborg  and  his  writings.] 


CORRECTIONS. 

ON  page  34  it  is  stated,  on  the  authority  of  Dr.  Wilkinson  and 
other  biographers,  that  Swedenborg  in  1709  received  the  degree  of 
Doctor  of  Philosophy.  Too  late  for  correction  in  the  first  edition, 
our  attention  has  been  called  to  a  note  from  Dr.  Kahl,  printed  as  a 
correction  by  Mr.  White  in  the  Appendix  to  the  first  volume  of  his 
"  Life  of  Swedenborg."  Dr.  Kahl  says,  — 

"  Swedenborg  never  took  this  degree.  He  was  only  a  student  when 
he  wrote  his  dissertation  on  Seneca,  Publius  Syrus,  etc.  Our  Atter- 
bom  says  somewhere  that  Swedenborg  was  Doctor  in  Philosophy, 
but  it  is  a  mistake." 

THE  value  of  the  copper  and  silver  daler  on  pages  21,  91,  and  263 
is  drawn  from  Kelly's  Cambist  of  1821,  in  which  the  copper  is  given  as 
worth  about  ^d.  and  the  silver  9^  d.  Swedenborg  notes  exchange  in 
1743  at  46  dalers  to  the  pound  sterling  in  London.  On  Kelly's  val- 
uation, exchange  being  against  Sweden,  it  seemed  that  the  46  dalers 
were  silver.  But  in*  Thomas's  "British  Negociator,"  1750,  we  find 
the  copper  daler  valued  at  6%  d.,  nearly.  Swedenborg's  46  dalers  must, 
then,  have  been  copper,  and  worth  in  London  about  $d.  each,  or  10 
cents,  while  the  silver  daler  was  worth  about  15^.,  or  30  cents.  His 
full  salary  at  that  rate  amounted  in  London  to  about  .£75,  or  $375. 


INDEX. 


INDEX. 


A. 

ABBEY  and  Overton,  cited,  5,  425. 

Abram,  222,  232,  251,  270. 

Academy  of  Sciences  at  Paris,  97  ; 
Royal  at  Stockholm,  98,  406; 
Imperial,  Russia,  98,  406. 

Ada  Eruditorum,  406. 

Adam,  270. 

Addison,  Joseph,  37. 

Adoration  of  saints,  107. 

Affection,  spiritual ;  looks,  natu- 
ral, 296. 

Agassiz,  Louis,  App.  XI. 

Alchemists,  199. 

Alcuin,  115. 

Algebra,  Swedenborg's,  64,  67,  70. 

Almanac,  with  entries  of  sowings, 
etc.,  394. 

Altartaflan,  394. 

Alzog,  cited,  146. 

Amsterdam,  Swedenborg  visits, 
105,  261,  316;  lodgings  at,  341, 
342. 

Anatomy,  Swedenborg  studies,  77, 
81,  101,  147,  152;  use  of  studies, 
297. 

Angels  awaiting  the  last  judg- 
ment, 282. 

Angels,  classes  of,«5i ;  conversing 
about  the  One  God,  256-259 ;  in 
charge  of  such  matters  as  inter- 
views with  spirits,  387 ;  speaking 
through  Swedenborg's  mouth, 

Answer,  to  inquiry  abput  Prince  of 
Saxe-Coburg,  390; 'to  Thomas 
Hartley's  letter,  314;  to  his  nine 
questions,  314. 

Apocalypse  briefly  explained,  301- 
3°3- 


Apostles  visit  Swedenborg,  338. 
Arabian  philosophy,  116. 
Aristotle,  in,  142,  166. 
Asceticism,  not  approved,  132. 
Assessorship    Extraordinary,    57, 

59,  60,  83,  87 ;    Ordinary,   91  ; 

retired  from,  261,  262. 
Assyria,  251,  320. 
Astronomy,  Swedenborg's  interest 

in,  37,  38>  47>  ?o. 
Athanasius,  259. 
Atmospheres,  293,  294. 
Augsburg  Confession,  357,  364. 
Autograph,  of  Swedenborg,  320. 
Axmar,  91. 


B. 


BABYLON,  284,  285,  302. 

Bacon,  Francis,  117. 

Bacon,  Roger,  116. 

Barham,  Francis,  45. 

Barnard,  Sir  John,  cited,  5. 

Bebel,  visited  by  Swedberg,  17. 

Bede,  115. 

Behm,  Brita,  75,  91. 

Behm,  Sara,  29,  73,  74. 

Benediction,  the  peace  of  the,  237. 

Bengel,  John  Albert,  2,  7,  12,  13. 

Benzelius,  78. 

Benzelius,  Eric,  the  younger,  40, 
44,  46,  49,  53,  61,  63,  64,  71. 

Benzelius,  Encus,  marriage,  29; 
ennobled,  30 ;  correspondence 
with  Swedenborg,  35^-82  ;  sent 
him  his  share  from  his  father's 
hymn-book,  22;  appointed  arch- 
bishop, 8 1. 

Benzelius,  Lars,  73,  74,  75,91,  ICO. 

Bergstrom,  Eric,  339. 

Berkeley,  117,  119. 


460 


INDEX. 


3 
fr 


Beyer,  Dr.  Gabriel  A.,  33,351,364, 
^S,  370  ;  collection  of  sermons, 
53  ;  indexes,  350,  370  ;  letters 

from  E.  S.  to,  351-356,  366. 
Bible,  prohibited    to   laity,    116; 

Hebrew,   all   of    Swedenborg's 

library  in  London,  338,  —  given 

to  Ferelius,  340;    Swedish,  re- 

vised by  Swedberg,  21,  22,  30. 
Bignon,  Abbe,  41. 
Bishop    of    St.    Asaph's    predic- 

tion, 4. 
Bishops  of  England,  treatment  of 

Swedenborg,  336  ;  treatment  of, 

in  Memorable  Relations,  351. 
Bjelke,  Count,  363. 
Bohme's  writings,  412;   Sweden- 

borg asked  about,  253. 
Bolton,  cited,  119. 
Bonde,  Count,  363. 
Boneauschold,  150. 
Bourignon,    Antoinette,  412,  Ap- 

pendix II. 
Boyle,  81. 
Brain,  the  seat  of  the  soul,  156, 

163;  work  on,  161. 
Brask,  Bishop,  61. 
Breathing,  different  modes  of,  200, 

201  ;  with  a  certain  cadence  fol- 

lowing choirs  in  heaven,  256. 
Bremner's  Excursions,  cited,  393. 
Brockmer's   false  statements  de- 

nied, 340. 
Bromell,  Dr.  54. 
Brown's  Estimate  of  the  Manners 

of  the  Times,  3. 
Brunner,    Swedberg's    preceptor, 

1  6,  20. 

Bruno,  Giordano,  117,  412. 
Brunsbo,   Swedberg  removed  to, 

25  ;  burned,  25,  26  ;  motto  over 

gate-way,  26. 

Brunswick,  92  ;  Duke  of,  96. 
Bull  Unigenitus,  i,  n,  390,  App.  I. 
Bullernaesia,  Anna,  29. 
Bullernsesius,  Petrus,  29. 
Burkhardt's  account  of  Sweden- 

borg, 340. 
Burnet,  Bishop,  4. 


C. 

CABOT,  117. 
Cairns,  Dr.  John,  9. 


Calculus,  essay  on,  67. 

Camus,  98. 

Canaan,  signification  of,  266. 

Canal  project,  58,  61-63, 68-70. 

Carlscrona,  58. 

Carlsbad,  94. 

Carlsberg,  103. 

Carlsgraf,  72. 

Carlyle,  Life  of  Frederick  the 
Great,  6;  Signs  of  the  Times, 
6;  Charles  XII.,  45,  118,  119. 

Carriage  left  at  Gottenburg,  352. 

Cassel,  92. 

Castel,  William,  348. 

Catechism  of  Dr.  Beyer,  351. 

Catechisms  given  by  Swedberg  to 
soldiers,  18. 

Catholic  services,  93-95,  107. 

Causes  of  things,  essay  on,  by 
Swedenborg,  67. 

Cedarholm,  63. 

Celestial  kingdom,  250. 

Censor  of  books,  77. 

Changuion's  bookstore,  341. 

Charity,  beginning  to  be  more 
spoken  of,  354. 

Charlemagne,  115. 

Charles  XL,  dealings  with  Swed- 
berg, 18-20;  trusted  nobody,  20; 
death,  48. 

Charles  XIL,  dealings  with  Swed- 
berg, 23,  24,  65;  with  Swe- 
denborg, 56-64,  70 ;  draining 
strength  of  Sweden,  24,  53,  69 ; 
return  to  Sweden,  44-49,  54,  — 
not  again  to  Stockholm,  55; 
letter  from,  59;  new  mode  of 
counting,  63-^68  ;  against  Fred- 
erickshall,  72-75;  death,  75; 
character  of,  by  Swedenborg,  76. 

Children,  Swedenborg's  interest 
in,  341,  343,  392  ;  their  instinct, 
396 ;  blind  girl,  399. 

Chillingworth,  cited,  2. 

Christian  Church,  113,  274,  301. 
Church,  has  been  closed  by  falses, 
can  be  opened  only  by  truths 
received  from  the  Lord,  369. 
Cities,  in  spiritual  world,  322. 
City  of  God,  145,   147,  165;  the 
Ho]y  City,  214  303. 

Clarke,  J.  F.,  416. 
Claudius  Matthius,  372. 
Clergy,  tax  on,  24. 


INDEX. 


46l 


Clergyman,  who  went  to  hell,  382. 

Clissold,  Rev.  Augustus,  96. 

Clowes,  Rev.  J.,  209;  letter  to, 
from  Hartley,  325. 

Coleridge,  S.  T.,  cited,  144,  317, 
412. 

Collection  of  Sermons  by  Dr. 
Beyer,  353. 

College  of  Commerce,  52  ;  of 
Mines,  57-60,  83,  87,  149,  261, 
262  ;  Royal  Medical,  78. 

Collin,  Rev.  Nicholas,  388. 

Colony,  Swedenborg's  doctrines 
good  for,  333.  See  Swedish. 

Columbus,  117. 

Coming  of  the  Lord,  198,  199,  281, 
283,  310,  315. 

Commerce  and  Manufactures,  es- 
say on,  67. 

Comte,  113. 

Condillac,  117,  119. 

Confiscation,  ordered  of  Sweden- 
borg's works,  359-361. 

Conjugial,  the  word,  305. 

Conjugial  love,  nature  of,  290, 305- 
308. 

Consistory,  authorized  to  summon 
Drs.  Beyer  and  Rosen,  359. 

Constantinople,  Greek  literature 
banished  from,  116. 

Copper,  exporting  of,  276 ;  new 
mode  of  working,  86. 

Copenhagen,  103. 

Corporeal  life  represents  spiritual 
life,  159. 

Correspondences,  147,  160,  212. 

Cosmogony,  97. 

Council  of  Trent,  309. 

Counting  heaps  of  balls  in  tri- 
angular form,  72. 

Creation,  history  of,  229 ;  not  out 
of  nothing,  294 ;  of  man,  to  re- 
ceive Divine  Love  and  Wisdom, 
295;  Divine  end  in,  158,  165, 
299. 

Crell's  Biblical  Concordance,  31. 

Criminals,  their  condition  after 
death,  382. 

Cronhjelm,  47. 

Cuno,  John  Christian,  340 ;  ac- 
count of  Swedenborg,  341-343 ; 
remonstrance  of,  343. 

Currency,  Swedenborg  on,  276- 
278. 


D. 

DALER,  value  of,  21,  91. 

Danieli,  395,  414. 

Danielsson,  Isak,  395. 

Dathan,  202. 

Decimal  system  of  coins  and  meas- 
ures, 79. 

Degrees,  141,  144,  160,  212,  293. 

Deism,  3,  10,  n. 

Delft,  179. 

Delights,  every  one  allowed  to  en- 
joy his  own,  299. 

Demoralization,  in  England,  41. 

Desolation,  of  the  Church,  1-12, 

3i5- 

Descartes,  56,  67,  117,  119,  124, 
133,  142,  412. 

Descriptions  des  Arts  et  des  Metiers, 
406. 

Diet,  Swedenborg  takes  his  seat 
in,  87, —  sends  memorials  to,  87- 
90,  275,  —  his  intention  of  com- 
plaining to,  365,  366. 

Diet  and  Privy  Council,  resolve 
not  to  touch  Swedenborg,  360. 

Dieterich,  31. 

Diseases  depending  on  the  mind 
do  not  leave  at  once  after  death, 
331. 

Divine  end,  realized  in  man's  abil- 
ity to  acknowledge  God,  130 ;  in 
creation,  158,  165,  299. 

Divine  Providence,  nature  and 
laws  of,  297  ;  governs  the  life  of 
man,  171,  173,  179. 

Dixon,  Captain,  336,  352. 

Doctrines  of  Swedenborg  drawn 
from  the  Word,  172;  best  for  a 
colony  (Hopken),  333 ;  lead  men 
to  good,  383  ;  in  substance,  that 
men  should  go  to  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  directly,  364. 

Documents,  of  J.  F.  I.  Tafel,  316. 

Documents,  of  R.  L.  Tafel,  15,  66, 
82. 

Doddridge,  10. 

Dog,  Swedenborg  dreams  of,  185. 

Dorner,  J.  A.,  cited,  2,  3, 8, 10,  367, 
App.  III.,  IV. 

Dragon,  193,  283,  302. 

Dragoons,  furnished  by  the  clergy, 
24. 

Dreams,  of  Swedenborg,  173-197. 


462 


INDEX. 


Dreams,  may  be  useful,  381. 

Dresden,  92-94. 

Duke  of  Brunswick,  96. 

Dumas,  Chemical  Philosophy,  85. 

Dutch,  105. 


E. 

EARTH,  approaching  the  sun,  76, 
78. 

Earths,  other,  spirits  of,  254,  255. 

Edwin,  King,  412. 

Edzardus,  visited  by  Swedberg, 
18. 

Egypt,  251,  320. 

Ekeblad,  Count,  336,  339,  363. 

Eleonora,  Hedwig,  48. 

Eleonora,  Ulrica,  wife  of  Charles 
•  XL ;  death  of,  48. 

Eleonora,  Ulrica,  sister  of  Charles 
XII.;  Swedberg  petitions,  23, 
25>  54  >  ennobles  his  family,  30, 
78;  assumes  place  of  Charles 
XII.  in  his  absence,  25  (note) ; 
becomes  Queen,  78. 

Elfvius,  39,  43,  53,  65. 

Elsinore,  61,  329,  330. 

Emerson,  R.  W.,  168,  412,  416. 

Empress  Elizabeth,  in  the  other 
world,  330,  378. 

Ennoblement  of  Swedberg's  fam- 
ily, 29,  30,  78. 

End  of  the  earth,  theory  of,  67. 

Epistles,  their  authority  and  use, 

35*»35*" 

Esberg,  70. 

Eustachius,  136. 
Evangelical  churches,  314. 
Evelyn,  John,  cited,  4. 
Evil,  state  of  the,  after  death,  218- 
223. 


F. 


FAC-SIMILE,  of  Swedenborg's  writ- 
ing, 320. 

Fahlstrom,  62. 

Fahlun,  15. 

Fahlun  Board  of  Mines,  87. 

Faith,  superior  to  reason,  153. 

Faith  alone,  beginning  to  be  called 
Moravian  faith,  354. 

Faith  and  good  works,  146. 


Fenelon,  Abp.,  App.  VI.,  VII. 

Ferelius,  Rev.  Arvid.  337,  338! 

Fichte,  113,,  App.  III. 

Filenius,  Bishop,  359,  364. 

Finance,  Swedenborg  on,  88,  90, 
276,  278. 

Fire  and  colors,  67,  85. 

Fire  at  Upsal,  23 ;  Brunsbo,  25,  26 ; 
Stockholm,  346,  348  ;  London, 
from  which  Apocalypse  Ex- 
plained was  saved,  287. 

Fires  of  hell,  79. 

Flamsteed,  37. 

Flamy  lights  and  other  signs,  173. 

Flood,  first  understanding  of,  230. 

Flying  machines,  43,  54,  55. 

Formula  Concorditz,  309,  357,  358, 
364- 

France,  40,  107, 108. 

Franciscan  monks,  106. 

Frederic,  King  of  Sweden  from 
1720  till  1751,86,  103,  151,  261, 
262. 

Frederic,  Adolphus,  King  of  Swe- 
den from  1751  till  1771,  332, 335, 

359- 

Frederic  V.  of  Denmark,  331. 
Frederickshall,  72,  75. 
Frederick  the  Great,  Life  of,  6,  335. 
French  Revolution,  7,  120,  App. 

V II. 


G. 

GALILEO,  117. 
Gamaliel,  334. 
Gardener  and  wife,  Swedenborg's, 

379»  38o>  394-400. 
Geier,  31. 

Gentiles,  in  the  Judgment,  285. 
Genuine  Christianity,  Swedenborg 

calls  his  doctrine,  358. 
Geology,  studied  by  Swedenborg, 

77,  7». 

Gerard,  Prof.  Alexander,  327. 
Gerhardi,  31. 
German  thinkers,  168. 
Gjorwell,  account  of  Swedenborg, 

384- 

Glorification  in  heaven,  256,  283. 
Goethe,  theory  of  color,  85. 
Golden  Age,  273. 
Gortz,  Baron,  70. 


INDEX. 


463 


Gottenburg,  35,  58,  63,  348. 

Gottenburg  Consistory,  Minutes, 
two  letters  of  Swedenborg 
printed  in,  358. 

Government,  Swedenborg  on, 
277-280. 

Grabe's  Septuagint,  37. 

Gray,  Asa,  App.  XI. 

Greatest  Man,  heaven  so  called, 
222,  271,  299. 

Greek  philosophy,  115. 

Griefswalde,  visited  by  Sweden- 
borg, 44. 

Grotius,  142. 

Gullspangelf,  58,  61. 

Gustav,  brother  of  Benzelius,  48. 

Gustavus  Adolphus,  415. 

Guyon,  Madame,  412,  App.  VI. 

Gyllenborg,  Countess,  72. 


H. 

HAGENBACH,  2,  8,  372,  374,  423. 

Hahn,  Philip,  M.,  App.  III. 

Hale,  E.  E.,  416. 

Halenius,  Bishop,  reproved  by 
Swedenborg,  illness,  and  change 
of  heart,  391  ;  his  children  at 
Swedenborg's  house,  392. 

Halley,  Dr.,  39. 

Hamburg,  92,  152. 

Hamilton,  Prof.  Robert,  Messi- 
ter's  letter  to,  327. 

Hammarberg,  Mr.,  orders  four 
copies  of  Swedenborg's  works, 
366. 

Handel,  36,  37. 

Happiness,  408,  409. 

Harmony  in  the  house,  Sweden- 
borg required,  401,  408. 

Hart,  John,  Swedenborg's  printer, 
340;  seen  in  the  other  world, 
341 ;  his  son's  account  of  Swe- 
denborg, 340,  —  who  was  fond 
of  his  little  girl,  340. 

Hartley,  David,  Observations  on 
Man,  4,  117. 

Hartley,  Rev.  Thomas,  314,  322- 

327- 

Hasselbom,  69. 

Head  of  the  Swedish  Church, 
according  to  Swedenborg,  is 
the  Houses  of  the  Diet,  they 


being  the  vicar  of  the   Lord, 

365- 

Heart  and  Lungs,  will  and  under- 
standing reside  in,  295. 

Heaven,  all  created  for,  299,  300 ; 
evil  allowed  to  go  to,  but  can- 
not bear,  299 ;  two  kingdoms  of, 
25,  296 ;  as  a  whole  corresponds 
to  the  Divine  Human  of  the 
Lord,  27 1 ;  seen  opening  before 
Swedenborg's  eyes,  256 ;  the 
three  heavens,  293. 

Hell,  permanence  of,  218-223. 

Helvetius,  De  1'Esprit,  5. 

Heraclitus,  411. 

Herder,  Johan  G.  von,  App.  III. 

Hess,  Felix,  Lavater  inquires 
about,  371. 

Hesselius,  81. 

Hindmarsh,  Robert,  314. 

Hire,  De  La,  41. 

Hjarne,  72,  73,  77. 

Hjelmar,  58,  61. 

Hobbes,  117. 

Holberg,  Professor,  104. 

Holland  visited  by  Swedberg,  17, 
106 ;  by  Swedenborg,  40,  83. 

Hoog,  the  Misses,  342. 

Hopken,  Count  Anders  Johan 
von,  279,  332,  334,  363. 

House  of  Clergy,  committee  re- 
port favorably  for  Dr.  Beyer, 
•559 ;  not  the  only  judge,  accord- 
ing to  Swedenborg,  379. 

Hume,  David,  3,  II,  12,  117-119. 

Hyde,  Zina,  388. 

Hymn,  quoted  by  Swedberg,  31 ; 
by  Swedenborg,  358. 

Hymn  and  psalm-book,  by  Swed- 
berg, 21,  22. 


IDERFJOL,  72. 
Illustrare  (note),  172. 
Illustration,  238-247. 
Incarnation,  nature  of,  208,  235, 

312,  313,  App.  IV. 
Infinite,  should  not  be  concluded 

on  from  the  finite,  128. 
Influx,  236,  241,  243. 
Intellectual  Repository,  cited,  374. 
Iron  Age,  274. 


464 


INDEX. 


Isaac,  222,  251. 

Isaksson,  Daniel,  15,  29,  394,  395. 

Israel,  signification  of,  320. 

Israelitish  Church,  274. 

Italy,  Swedenborg  visits,  107. 


ACOB,  222,  251. 

ames,  cited,  210,  211. 
ansenists,  n. 

erusalem,  signification  of,  266  ; 
in  the  world  of  spirits,  called 
Sodom,  303. 

Jerusalem,  New,  311,  328. 
Jesuits,  i,  n,  390,  415. 
Jews,  carried  Arabian  philosophy 

through  Europe,  116. 
John,  the  Baptist,  12,  14,  32;  the 

Apostle,  32,  in,  285,  286,  301. 
Judgment,  7-13,  281-285,  301,  315. 
Jukes,  Rev.  Andrew,  App.  III. 
Jung-Stilling,  J.  H.,  345,  373. 
Jupiter,  spirits  of,  254,  255. 


K. 

KANT,  117,  119,  124,  125;  cited, 

T  348,  349,  App.  IX. 

King  s  Arms  Tavern,  Swedenborg 

at>  339- 
Kinnekulle,  proposed  observatory 

at,  47. 

Konauw,  Nicolam,  342. 
Korah,  202. 
Kramer,  104. 
Kurtz,  cited,  7,  345,  367,  371. 


LACOMBE,  App.  VII. 
La  Mettrie,  cited,  6. 
Lambert,  Father,  421. 
Lecky,  W.  E.  H.,  App.  V. 
Lavater,  John  Casper,  371,  372. 
Leibnitz,  3,  117,  133,  142,  166. 
Leipsic,  84,  92,  95  ;  letter  from, 

98. 
Lewes,  George  Henry,  cited,  113, 

119. 
Lewis,  John,  264. 


Leyden,  41. 

Life,  bodily  typical  of  spiritual, 

*&'  . 
Linkoping,  103,  391. 

Little  girl  allowed  in  Sweden- 
borg's  garden,  392,  401. 

Locke,  John,  106,  117-119,  133, 
142,  1 66. 

Logos,  112,  231. 

London,  Swedenborg  first  visits, 
35;  lodgings  at,  263,  401. 

Longitude,  Swedenborg's  mode 
of  finding,  38,  39,  41,  47- 

Lost  Receipt,  349. 

Lord,  The,  so  called  without  other 
names,  269  ;  as  the  Sun  of 
heaven,  233,  253,  288,  292-294; 
yet  not  the  Sun  itself,  but  with- 
in it,  258. 

Louis  XIV.,  390. 

Louis  XV.,  n,  98,  390. 

Love,  of  truth  for  the  sake  of 
truth,  172,  240,  246,  275  ;  of 
one's  own  works,  185,  194-196. 

Ludolphus,  visited  by  Swedberg, 

17- 

Ludwig  (Louis)  Rudolph,  84,  96. 
Lunstedt,  captain,  74,  75. 
Luther,  Martin,  146,  309,  358. 


M. 

MAGNETIC  THEORY,  96,  98. 

Mahometans  in  Spain,  116;  in 
the  Judgmtnt,  285. 

Man,  his  freedom  and  power  of 
acting,  297,  298;  not  thinking 
from  himself,  298,  299;  created 
for  heaven,  299;  habit  of  thought 
carried  with  him,  346 ;  his  first 
estate,  and  change  at  this  day, 

Manderstrom,  171. 

Manuscript,  Swedenborg's,  print- 
ed from  without  a  copyist,  381 ; 
harder  to  read  as  he  grew  older, 
381 ;  fac-simile  of,  320. 

Marble  table  of  Swedenborg,  377. 

Marquis  de  Thome,  98. 

Marriage,  Dr.  Beyer  asked  Swe- 
denborg to  write  on,  351. 

Marshall's  microscopes,  40. 

Marteville,  Madame,  349. 


INDEX. 


465 


Mathematics,  studied  by  Sweden- 

borg.  35>  39»  40«  42. 
Mathesius,  338,  339. 
Matheson,  Kev.  George,  14,  116, 

App.  VIIL,  XII. 
Matter,    M.,    98,    280,   412,   414, 

App.  X. 
Memorable     relations,     why     in 

serted,  332,  333. 
Memorials   to   Diet,   87-90,   275; 

Hopken's  account  of,  332. 
Merchant,  John,  265. 
Merchant's  story,  345-347. 
Mercury,  spirits  of,  255. 
Messiter,  Dr.  H.,  326-328. 
Microscope,    described    by    Swe- 

denborg,  40. 
Mill,  J.  S.,  113. 
Ministers,  new,  necessary  for  the 

New  Church,  354. 
Miracles,  do  not  happen  now,  363. 
Mission  of  Swedenborg,  318-320. 
Morals  in  Sweden,  307. 
Moravians,  193. 
Morell,  J.  D.,  166. 
Morner,  Count,  70. 
Moser,  Rev.  Mr.,  388. 
Mosheim,  cited,  I. 
Most    Ancient   Church,   252-254, 

270,  273. 

Mother  of  Swedenborg,  29. 
Music,    Swedberg    fond    of,    31 ; 

studied    by    Swedenborg,    35 ; 

enjoyed,  331. 


N. 

NAARDEN,  105. 

Nature,  everything  in,  adores  God, 
132. 

Natural  degree  loves  self,  spirit- 
ual degree  loves  the  Lord,  300. 

Natural  things  lead  to  spiritual, 

369- 
Nebular    hypothesis,     125,     126, 

App.  IX. 
New  Church,  which  is  the  New 

Jerusalem,  240,  311,  315,  319; 

coming  of,  328,  335,  336,  353, 

355,  365;  faith  of,  310,  311. 
New  Heaven,  302,  310,  311;  not 

yet  (1766)  fully  established,  353, 


New  Jerusalem,  311,  328. 

New-Jerusalem  Magazine,  cited, 
218. 

Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  studied  Apoc- 
alypse, 120;  cited,  285;  Swe- 
denborg studies,  36,  120  ;  his 
Principia,  37  ;  theory  of  color, 
85. 

Nexus,  between  the  Infinite  and 
the  Finite,  129-133;  restored 
by  the  Messiah,  132. 

Nilson,  Isaac,  15  (note}. 

Noah,  230,  270. 

Nordencrantz,  277,  278. 

Nordenskold,  cited,  328. 

Norkoping,  68. 

Norway,  expedition  against,  75. 

Noxious  animals  and  plants,  295. 

Nunc  licet)  228. 

Nya  Kyrkan  i  Sverige,  280. 

Nyren,  Magnus,  App.  IX. 


O. 

OBERLIN,  Father,  373-375. 
Observatory  projected  by  Sweden- 
borg, 47,  62,  67. 
Oetinger,  171,  367,  368,  370. 
Oldenburg,  Kings  of   House   of, 

331- 
Olofsohn,  Olof,  death   predicted, 

389- 

Oronoskow,  inquiry  about  Em- 
press Elizabeth,  378. 

Otteson,  Nils,  15  (note}. 

Otto,  15  (note}. 

Outer  mind  had  still  something  of 
sadness,  213. 

Ovid,  43,  47,  305,  332. 


P. 


PALMER,  cited,  3. 

Palmquist,  visited  by  Sweden- 
borg, 41. 

Paris,  visited  by  Swedenborg,  40, 
107,  108. 

Parsons,  Theophilus,  App.  XI. 

Particles,  theory  of,   66,   67,  85, 

'75- 

Pattison,  Mark,  cited,  5. 
Paul,  cited,  209. 


466 


INDEX. 


Paulus  ab  Indagine,  assumed 
name  of  Cuno,  343. 

Peace  from  the  presence  of  the 
Lord,  236,  237. 

Peckitt,  Henry,  287. 

Peirce,  Benjamin,  App.  XI. 

Pernety,  cited,  392. 

Persecution  of  Drs.  Beyer  and 
Rosen,  356,  359. 

Peter,  338  ;  cited,  ,210. 

Peter  the  Great,  44. 

Peter  III.,  story  of,  347. 

Philosopher  believes  with  diffi- 
culty, 179. 

Philosophy,  Arabian,  116;  Greek, 
111,115;  Swedenborg's  studies 
of,  109-168;  use  of,  no;  in 
agreement  with  revelation,  and 
study  of,  should  begin  from 
God,  127. 

Pietism,  12;  favored  by  Swedberg, 
25,  App.  VI. 

Plato,  in,  1 66. 

Poetry  of  Swede uborg,  26  (note), 
34,  39,  43,  44,  46,  47,  52. 

Polhem  (Polhammar),  38,  44,  49- 
57,  59,  60,  62,  63,  76 ;  daughters, 
62,  71,  72. 

Politics,  of  Swedenborg,  278,  280. 

Pope,  Alexander,  4,  37. 

Portraits,  of  Swedenborg,  96,  App. 
XIII. 

Prague,  92. 

Prayer,  effects  of,  106,  107. 

Pride  in  what  one  has  written 
overcome  by  laying  it  away  for 
a  while,  138. 

Prince  Augustus  William,  of 
Prussia,  336. 

Professorship  at  first  desired  by 
Swedenborg,  47,  51,  — then  de- 
clined, 65,  68. 

Progress  of  religious  thought,  314. 

Prophets  wrote  from  dictation, 
242. 

Proof-reading,  faulty,  of  Sweden- 
borg's works,  381. 

Property  and  income  of  Swed- 
berg, 18,  21,  27,  40,  73,  74;  of 
Swedenborg,  39,  73-75,  83,  91, 
101,  151,  263. 

Proprium,  doctrine  of,  213,  317. 

Protestant  Church,  decline  of,  I, 
II. 


Provo,  Peter,  339,  340. 

Psalter,  prohibited  in  language  of 

people,  116. 
Purpose  of  creation,  158,  165. 


Q- 

QUEEN  ANNE'S  reign,  36. 
Queen  Louisa  Ulrica,  336;  story 

of,  33°.  334,  346,  348,  388- 
Queen  Ulrica  Eleonora.     See  Ele- 

onora. 

Quesnel,  Father,  n. 
Question,  at    issue,   whether  we 

may  go  direct  to  the  Saviour, 

357- 


R. 

RALEIGH,  SIR  WALTER,  117. 

Rational  Psychology,  141,  142, 
163. 

Reason,  development  of,  113-123; 
limitations  of,  118-120,  123, 
128,  129  ;  its  affirmation  for  ex- 
istence of  God,  132;  when  per- 
plexed must  go  to  revelation, 
and  vice  versa,  133;  delightful 
faculty  of,  137,  157. 

Receipt,  story  of  the  lost,  349; 
confirmed  by  Swedenborg,  346, 
348.  . 

Reception  of  Swedenborg's  teach- 
ings, in  five  ways,  265 ;  difficult 
with  clergy,  353,  379. 

Reformation,  170. 

Reformed,  in  the  Judgment,  285. 

Regeneration,  nature  of,  170,  178, 
197,  268,  269;  effect  of,  209. 

Regnum  Minerale,  Swedenborg's 
intended  prosecution  of,  149, 
151. 

Repentance,  need  of  particular 
confession  of  sin,  305. 

Representation  of  correspondence 
of  will  and  understanding  with 
heart  and  lungs,  296. 

Representations,  159,  160,  248; 
of  the  Messiah  in  the  sepulchre, 
248. 

Reucher,  81. 

Revelation,  solely  by  the  Word, 


INDEX. 


467 


172,  247  ;  mediate  and  imme- 
diate, 247. 

Roberg,  Dr.,  58,  61,  66,  67. 

Robsahm,  Carl,  203,  375-383. 

Roman  Catholic  Church,  decline 
of,  I ;  reformation,  8 ;  domina- 
tion, 115,  1 1 6,  App.  I.;  service 
of,  93-95,  107. 

Roman  Catholics,  come  into  New 
Church  more  easily  than  the 
Reformed,  311  ;  advancing  in 
theology,  168. 

Rome,  Church  of,  302,  303. 

Rosen,  Dr.  Johan,  356,  364-367, 
370. 

Rosencrantz,  104. 

Rostock,  visited  by  Swedenborg, 
42. 

Rotterdam,  visited  by  Sweden- 
borg, 105. 

Royal  Medical  College,  77. 

Riickerskold,  71. 

Rudolph,  Ludwig,  96. 

Rules  of  life,  169,  405. 

Russians,  approach  of,  44. 


S. 


SAALFELD,  Prince  of  Saxe-Co- 
burg,  fate  of,  390. 

Saint  Paul's  Cathedral,  36,  37. 

Salvation,  to  be  sure  of  being  in 
the  way  of,  330. 

Salt  Manufacture,  61,  62,  67. 

Sandels,  Samuel,  72, 169,  404-408. 

Saxony,  Duke  of,  93. 

Schelling,  cited,  12. 

Scherer,  Professor,  his  stories  of 
Swedenborg's  spiritual  inter- 
course, 389. 

Schleiden,  Professor,  98. 

Schmidt,  J.,  31. 

Schmidt,  Sebastian,  17,  31  ;  Bible 
of,  17,  229. 

Schutenhjelm,  104. 

Schwegler,  History  of  Philosophy, 
cited,  6,  12, 112. 

Scott,  Samuel,  diary  of,  324. 

Scripture,  passages  cited  or  ex- 
plained :  Genesis  i.,  p.  229,  267- 
270 ;  xlvii.  22,  p.  24.  Exodus 
xxxi.  3,  p.  240;  xxxi.  13,  p.  273. 
Numbers,  xxiv.  4,  p.  370.  Isaiah 


xix.  23,  25,  p.  319.  Daniel  ii. 
43,  p.  274 ;  v.  u,  p.  370.  Zech- 
ariah,  xiv.  19,  p.  336.  Matthew 
xxiv.  3,  p.  13  ;  xxviii.  18,  p.  364; 
xxviii.  30,  p.  13.  John  i.  1-14, 
p.  313;  iv.  52,  p.  9;  xiii.  13, 
p.  270 ;  xiv.  6,  pp.  323,  369;  xiv. 
6-1 1,  p.  270;  xiv.  17,  p.  121 ; 
xxi.  18,  p.  114.  Acts  xvii.  18- 
34,  p.  145;  xix.  21,  p.  368.  Ro- 
mans iii.  28,  p.  146.  2  Corinth- 
ians xii.  2,  p.  218.  Colossians 
ii.  9,  p.  358.  2  Timothy  iii.  i- 
10,  p.  145.  James  iii.  14-17, 
p.  21 1.  I  John  v.  20,  21,  p.  343. 
Revelation  iv.  p.  301  ;  xii.  14, 
P- 355J  x"-  i»2,P-353;  xxi-  2» 
P-  335  5  xxi-  2>  5>  PP-  3°9»  320- 

Scriptures,  interpretation  of,  149, 
213,  229. 

Searching  of  heart  and  reins,  159. 

Seeker,  Archbishop,  cited,  5. 

Second  sight,  in  Sweden,  388  ;  in 
Switzerland,  373. 

"  Self-formation,"  cited,  200. 

Semler,  attacks  the  views  of  La- 
vater  and  Swedenborg,  372. 

Seneca,  34,  138,  140. 

Series  and  degrees,  141,  144,  160, 
212,  293. 

Service  of  Danish  Church,  103 ; 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  93-95, 
107. 

Seven  Years'  War,  12. 

Shearsmith,  Richard,  328,  401. 

Shibboleth,  of  Swedberg,  64,  73. 

Ship-building,  directions,  72. 

Sign,  Swedenborg  has  the,  175. 

Silver  Age,  273. 

Simons,  81. 

Sinclair,  John,  118. 

Sjoberg,  Captain,  commissioned 
to  buy  Swedenborg's  books, 
366. 

Skara,  Swedberg's  diocese,  25. 

Skinskatteberg,  74,  80,  83. 

Smithson,  Rev.  J.  H.,  316,  373. 

Socrates,  in,  414. 

Soul,  in  infancy,  154;  nature  of, 
162,  164;  conclusion  of,  as  to 
God,  128;  forms  the  body  to  its 
own  likeness,  134,  162;  effort  to 
reach,  135,  153. 

Souls,  society  of,  164 ;  in  captivity, 


468 


INDEX. 


Swedenborg  comforting,  282  ; 
liberated,  282,  283. 

Speech,  heavenly,  sound  of,  first 
heard;  then  the  speech  itself, 
256. 

Spence,  Dr.  William,  cited,  and 
account  of,  328. 

Spener,  12;  visited  by  Swedberg, 
17;  App.  VI. 

Spinoza,  117,  119,  412. 

Spirit,  the,  opposed  by  Sweden- 
borg, 174, 175  ;  manner  of  speak- 
ing of,  192,  202,  235  ;  the  Holy 
Spirit,  need  of,  234,  244. 

Spirits,  operation  of,  perceived  be- 
fore seen,  173;  not  thought  to 
be  in  human  form,  at  first,  215- 
217  ;  carried  about  to  find  their 
places  in  heaven,  282;  great 
numbers  being  set  in  order,  353 ; 
danger  of  trusting,  234 ;  do  not 
know  the  manner  of  their  death, 
nor  recognize  such  a  thing,  390; 
their  senses,  217;  world  of, 
needing  instruction,  284;  ruled 
by  the  Lord,  235-237 ;  of  other 
earths,  254,  255. 

Spiritual  intercourse  of  Sweden- 
borg believed,  347,  348,  368,  388. 

Spiritual  life,  represented  in  cor- 
poreal life,  159. 

Spiritual  things  now  revealed,  to 
be  understood  naturally  and 
rationally,  368. 

Springer,  Christopher,  334-336, 
340- 

Spurgin,  Dr.,  cited,  144. 

Starbo,  74,  80. 

Steele,  Richard,  37. 

Stephen,  Leslie,  cited,  2,  4,  10. 

Stewart,  Dugald,  106. 

Stiernhjelm,  54,  62. 

Stiernsund,  50,  55,  66. 

Stockholm,  Charles  XII.  did  not 
return  to,  54,  55 ;  described,  393 ; 
morals  of,  307  (note) ;  in  world 
of  spirits,  321. 

Stories  of  the  Queen,  etc.,  time  of, 

35°- 

Story,  of  the  Queen,  330,  334,  346, 
348,  388  ;  of  the  fire  at  Stock- 
holm,' 346,  348  ;  of  the  lost  re- 
ceipt, 346,  348,  349 ;  of  the  mer- 
chant, 345-347  ;  of  the  sparrow, 


412  ;  Wetterbey's,  of  Sweden- 
borg,  his  family,  and  gardener 
and  wife,  394-400. 

Stralsund,  besieged,  45,  49 ;  Swe- 
denborg visits,  92,  131. 

Stromstadt,  70,  72. 

Sun,  the  seat  of  energy,  79 ;  the 
Sun  of  heaven,  233,  253,  258', 
288,  292-294. 

Sundborg,  15  (note). 

Svardsjo,  29. 

Swedberg,  Albrecht,  29. 

Swedberg,  Anna,  29,  34;  men- 
tioned by  Swedenborg,  35,  40, 
44,  47-49,  53,  55,  58,  61,  64,  103; 
death  of,  82. 

Swedberg,  Catharina,  28,  29  ; 
daughter,  53  ;  husband,  74. 

Swedberg,  Daniel,  29. 

Swedberg,  Eliezer,  28,  29. 

Swedberg  family,  ennobled,  29, 
30 ;  strange  thoughts  in,  395, 
415  ;  venerated  Swedenborg,  but 
thought  him  visionary,  396. 

Swedberg,  Hedwig,  29,  40,  74. 

Swedberg,  Jesper ;  ancestry,  15; 
mother,  29  ;  birth,  1 5  ;  narrow 
escape,  15  ;  sense  of  Divine  pro- 
tection, 16,  30;  early  piety,  16; 
went  to  school  at  Upsal,  16; 
suffered  at  school,  20 ;  went  to 
school  at  Lund,  16;  developed 
youthful  vanity,  16 ;  pupil  of 
Brunner,  and  learned  better,  16  ; 
travelled  in  Denmark,  16;  prac- 
tised preaching  and  received 
degree  of  Magister,  17;  was 
married,  17;  travelled  in  Eng- 
land, France,  Holland,  and  Ger- 
many, 17 ;  visited  Bebel,  Spener, 
Ludolphus,  Schmidt,  17  ;  visited 
Edzardus,  18 ;  Swedish  gram- 
mar, 17,  27;  ordained,  18;  ap- 
pointed chaplain,  18  ;  gave  cate- 
chisms to  soldiers,  18;  preached 
to  Charles  XL,  18 ;  dealings 
with  Charles  XL,  18-21;  op- 
posed by  the  court,  19  ;  baptism 
of  child,  19;  improved  schools, 
20;  pastor  at  VingSker,  20,  21  ; 
a  reformer,  21  ;  professor,  dean, 
and  rector  at  Upsal,  21,  22 ; 
revised  Swedish  Bible,  21,  22, 
30;  hymn  and  psalm  book,  21, 


INDEX. 


469 


22 ;  stone  house  at  Upsal,  23 ; 
success   at   Upsal,   22,   23 ;    ap- 

g Dinted  bishop,  23  ;  removed  to 
runsbo,  25 ;  dealings  with  Ul- 
rica Eleonora,  23,  25 ;  dealings 
with  Charles  XII.,  23,  24,  65  ; 
furnished  dragoons,  24 ;  labors 
as  bishop,  25  ;  motto  over  gate- 
way, 26;  house  at  Brunsbo 
burned,  25,  26 ;  pocket  Bible, 
26 ;  engraved  portrait,  26 ;  style 
of  preaching,  25,  34 ;  bishop  of 
Swedish  colonies,  27,  386  ;  Sun- 
day child,  28  ;  wives,  27,  29 ; 
children,  27,  28,  29,  —  reason  of 
their  names,  28,  33 ;  family  en- 
nobled, 29,  30,  78  ;  petitions  for 
place  for  Emanuel,  45  ;  love  of 
writing  and  printing,  26,  27 ; 
works  printed,  27,34, — expected 
they  would  be  used  to  wrap 
cakes  and  pies,  361  (note)  ;  char- 
acter, 30-32 ;  belief  in  spirits 
and  angels,  30,  31 ;  fondness  for 
music,  31  ;  spiritual  experience, 
31 ;  use  of  money,  18,  21,  27,  39, 
40,  41,  73  ;  Shibboleth,  64,  73  ; 
failure  of  strength,  26;  death, 
30;  burial,  100;  mentioned  by 
Springer,  335 ;  by  Wetterbey, 

395- 

Swedberg,  Jesper,  son  of  pre- 
ceding, 28,  29,  73. 

Swedberg,  Margaretha,  29 ;  hus- 
band, 74,  75. 

Sweden,  the  homestead,  15,  395. 

Sweden,  left  by  Swedenborg  for 
the  last  time,  379 ;  stronghold 
of  Protestantism,  415. 

Swedenborg,  Anna.  See  Swed- 
berg, Anna. 

Swedenborg,  Emanuel,  parentage, 
15-33.  Mother,  29.  Birth,  29, 

34.  Christian    name,    28,    33. 
Childhood    at    Upsal,    22,    34. 
Childhood  thoughts,  33.     Early 
life,  to  Dr.  Beyer,  33,  355.    Grad- 
uated,   34.      Proposed    course, 

35,  39.     Learns    to    play    the 
organ,    35  ;    book-binding,   35  ; 
other  trades,  37,  38,  41.     Dan- 
gers   of    first   voyage,    35,    36. 
Travels  in  England,  35 ;  France, 
40,  107,  108;  Germany,  42,  44, 


?2 ;  Holland,  40,  83,  105,  182 ; 
taly,  107.  Studies  astronomy, 
37,  38 ;  chemistry,  68,  81 ;  math- 
ematics, 35,  39,  40,  42  ;  mechan- 
ics, 37,  42-44,  51,  56,  58;  min- 
ing, 77, 80, 97  ;  music,  35 ;  New- 
ton, 36,  120;  geology,  77,  78; 
anatomy,  77,  81,  101,  134,  147, 
i  52,  297  ;  Hebrew,  229  ;  Scrip- 
tures, 229-261.  Plans  for  air- 
guns,  43,  46 ;  cords  and  springs, 
43 ;  docks  and  dykes,  84 ;  draw- 
bridge, 42;  drawing  mechanical- 
ly, 43  ;  fire-engine,  42, 47;  flying- 
machine,  43,  54 ;  the  future,  79, 
80;  method  of  analyzing  de- 
sires, 43;  mechanical'  carriage, 
43;  musical  instrument,  43  ; 
mode  of  working  copper,  86; 
mode  of  working  steel,  91  ;  new 
stoves.  77  ;  new  mode  of  count- 
ing, 63,  64,  66,  68 ;  siphon,  42  ; 
sluices  and  locks,  42,  46 ;  trans- 
porting ships,  46,  72 ;  sub- 
marine vessel,  42,  46 ;  observa- 
tory, 47,  62,  67 ;  water-clock, 
43 /  Talk  of  professorship,  47, 
51,  65,  68,  400.  Intercourse 
with  Flamsteed,  17  ;  with  Abbe 
Bignon,  41  ;  with  De  La  Hire, 
41  ;  with  Charles  XII.,  56-70. 
Engineering  for  Charles  XII., 
58-69.  Daedalus,  33-58  ;  hopes 
future  things  to  be  better  than 
Dasdalus,  68,  78.  Little  encour- 
agement in  Sweden,  69,  79,  80. 
Love  of  novelties,  66.  Proposes 
to  go  to  Norway  with  Charles 
XII.,  73  ;  glad  he  did  not  go, 
75.  Family  relations,  73,  74. 
Contemplated  marriage,  71,  72, 
408.  Takes  his  new  name,  78. 
Takes  seat  in  Diet,  87  ;  mem- 
orializes Diet,  87,  89,  90,  275, 
332,  333;  interest  in  Diet,  381. 
Appointed  to  College  of  Mines, 
57»  59»  60;  petitions  for  salary, 
83 ;  takes  seat  in  college,  87 ; 
petitions  for  leave  of  absence, 
91,  98,  100,  102,  149;  resigns 
seat,  261,  262.  Income  and 
property,  22,  39,  73,  74,  75,  83, 
91,  101,  151,  263,  265.  Improve- 
ments in  copper-working,  86 ; 


470 


INDEX. 


in  iron,  90 ;  in  mining,  98.  Lan- 
guages used,  40,  49,  341,  377. 
Poetry,  26,  34,  39,  43,  44,  4&  47, 
52,  332.  Mode  of  reasoning, 
86.  No  desire  for  applause,  1 24, 
141.  Writings  for  those  who 
have  not  faith,  153.  Sought 
First  Cause,  86.  Philosophical 
studies,  109-168.  Did  not  use 
his  own  experiments,  136.  Spir- 
itual preparation,  169-194,  318, 
369  ;  dreams,  173-197  ;  relieved 
from  love  of  the  sex  and  his 
own  works,  174 ;  the  Lord  ap- 
peared to  him,  180,  203 ;  motto, 
1 86;  thought  on  the  wood  of 
the  cross,  187 ;  ideas  of  the 
Trinity,  182,  231,  258,  259, 
309,  310;  thought  himself  the 
greatest  sinner,  184;  arrogance 
would  come,  185 ;  prayed  for 
grace  not  to  be  his  own,  187  ; 
saw  inner  man  to  be  distinct 
from  outer,  188  ;  first  open 
vision,  202-204.  Why  from  a 
philosopher  he  became  a  theo- 
logian, 173,  368.  Preparation 
from  youth,  171,  190.  Appetite 
to  be  restrained,  191,  203.  Pu- 
rification represented  by  appear- 
ing to  write  a  fine  hand,  197. 
Swoon,  197.  Early  respect  for 
the  Word  of  God,  79.  Thoughts 
of  interpreting  Scripture,  149. 
Learned  that  he  was  to  unfold 
the  Word,  261.  Experienced 
that  there  was  no  evil  with  him, 
205 ;  that  he  was  not  anything, 
206.  Neglect  of  self  in  theolog- 
ical works,  260.  Protected,  206. 
Voyages  prosperous,  206,  336, 
352 ;  foretold  their  duration, 
336.  Freed  from  care,  263,  264. 
Learned  nature  of  spirits,  202, 
215,  222,  235.  Growth  of  spirit- 
ual ideas,  215-228.  How  in- 
structed, 238,  351  ;  how  directed 
in  writing,  and  that  to  be  de- 
stroyed which  was  not  from  the 
Lord,  244,  245.  Gjorwell's 
statement  of  inspiration,  386. 
Hebrew  first  to  be  learned,  and 
corresnondences,  353.  Forbid- 
den to  read  systematic  theology, 


353.  Word  had  to  be  read  many 
times,  353.  Prepared  from 
1710-1744,369.  His  part  in  the 
judgment,  284.  Experience  in 
other  world,  lay  as  dead,  303. 
Enabled  to  see  from  whom  any 
evil  or  falsity  came,  299.  Intro- 
duced into  the  good  represented 
by  John,  286.  Change  of  spirit, 
and  angelic  company  evident, 
322 ;  yet  a  sinner  while  in  this 
sinful  body,  337.  Life  not  per- 
fect, but  had  tried  to  do  as  well 
as  he  could,  400.  Infested  at 
times  with  evil  spirits,  206,  338, 
379,  380.  Character  described 
by  Hartley,  326 ;  Messiter,  328  ; 
Hopkins,  332;  Springer,  335; 
Cuno,  341  ;  Jung-Stilling,  345  ; 
Claudius,  372;  Robsahm,  378; 
Andersson,  the  gardener,  379, 
380;  Gjorwell,  384  ;  Collin,  388 ; 
Scherer,  389  ;  Shearsmith,  402  ; 
Sandels,  404,  405.  Appearance 
and  manners,  398.  Described  by 
Tuxen,  329-331  ;  Ferelius,  339 ; 
Bergstrom,  340 ;  Hart,  340, 341 ; 
Burkhardt,  341 ;  Cuno,  341-343 ; 
Robsahm,  381,  382 ;  Gjorwell, 
384;  Collin,  388;  Shearsmith, 
402 ;  Sandels,  408.  Fond  of  mu- 
sic, 331 ;  of  good  children,  340, 
343,  392, 400 ;  of  gardening,  264, 
275,  394.  Happiness,  408,  409. 
Health,  99,  379,  402  ;  tooth- 
ache, 379 ;  food,  335,  340,  376, 
402  ;  snuff,  402.  Modest  style 
of  living,  263,  342  ;  dress, 
339,  342,  377,  402.  Manner  of 
speech,  339,  341,  342,  377,  384, 
Sleep,  376, 401.  Originality,  407. 
Aim  as  a  philosopher,  407.  Pre- 
ference for  quiet  life  in  Sweden, 
150.  Lodgings,  263,  341,  342, 
401.  Wanted  harmony  in  the 
house,  401, 408.  Own  house  and 
garden,  373,  376,  377,  384,  393, 
394,  396,  400.  Gardener  and 
wife,  394  ;  their  story,  397- 
400.  Not  lacking  nor  wasting 
money,  401.  Paid  for  print- 
ing his  books,  proceeds  go  for 
propagation  of  the  Gospel,  265. 
Rules  of  life,  169,  405.  Not 


INDEX. 


471 


in  peace  at  church,  338,  398, 
401.  Receiving  the  commun- 
ion, 176,  192,  194,  337,  403. 
Every  day  a  Sabbath,  402. 
Spiritual  association,  251,  253, 
321.  Friends  of  later  life,  322 ; 
exhorts  them  to  good  life,  328, 
336,  342.  Affirms  the  truth  of 
his  mission  and  revelations,  328, 
333»  337,  362>  387-  Nature  of 
mission  and  doctrines  as  told 
by  Gjorwell,  385.  Could  not 
cause  spirits  to  speak  with 
others,  363.  Declined  to  seek 
an  interview  with  Collin's  broth- 
er, 387.  Would  not  ask  about 
the  fate  of  the  Prince  of  Saxe- 
Coburg,  390.  Conversible  with 
honest  men,  339,  343,  377.  De- 
clined answering  impertinent 
questions,  339,  340.  Cautious 
about  private  conversations, 
391.  Manner  abstracted  in  later 
life,  341.  Heard  talking  with 
spirits,  338,  401.  Appearance  as 
coming  out  of  a  trance,  330. 
Expression  after  speaking  with 
angels,  380;  with  evil  spirits, 
380.  Attached  his  name  to 
C.  L.,  306;  to  B.  E.,  309;  to 
T.  C.  R.  315,  — induced  by 
Hartley,  326.  Correspondence 
with  Benzelius,  35-82 ;  Dr. 
Beyer,  309,  352-357,  365,366; 
Tuxen,  359;  Oetinger,  368. 
Charged  with  heresy,  377 ; 
letters  of  remonstrance  to  the 
Consistory,  etc. ,358-378.  Death 
not  to  come  till  after  printing 
T.  C.  R.  379.  Foretold  his  own 
death,  and  Dr.  Messiter's,  328, 
402  ;  Olofsohn's,  389.  Willing- 
ness to  leave  the  world,  but  not 
so  much  difference  if  one  is 
conjoined  with  the  Lord,  343. 
Has  set  a  standard  in  advance, 
^99.  Thought  visionary  by  fam- 
ily, but  venerated,  396.  Offered 
a  home  in  England,  but  de- 
clined, 323.  On  friendly  terms 
with  royal  family  and  digni- 
taries of  his  country,  323.  Con- 
clusion of  life,  321 ;  paralytic 
stroke,  338, 402, 408  ;  in  bed  for 


several  days,  380 ;  in  a  trance 
some  weeks,  402 ;  death,  403, 
408 ;  burial,  337,  403.  Sandels' 
eulogy,  404-408. 

Swedenborg's  published  works: 
Academical  thesis,  34.  Eccle- 
siastes,  xii.,  in  Latin  verse,  34. 
Camena  Borea,  47.  Daedalus, 
46-72;  dedication,  49;  little 
thought  of  by  its  author,  68. 
Ludus  Heliconius,  44,  52.  Al- 
gebra, 64,  67,  70.  Mode  of  find- 
ing longitude,  38,  39,  41,  47,  70, 
84.  On  the  tinware  of  Stiern- 
sund,  66.  Miscellaneous  obser- 
vations, 84.  Principles  of  Chem- 
istry, 84.  Opera  Philosophica, 
including  Principia,  87,  92-98, 
125,  213,  406;  cited,  121-124; 
Oetinger  on,  368.  On  the  Infi- 
nite, 92,  126;  cited,  127-134. 
Economy  of  the  Animal  King- 
dom, cited,  76, 135-145, 175, 197  ; 
published,  108;  described,  134, 
152,  153.  Faith  and  Good 
Works,  146.  On  the  Soul,  163, 
170.  On  the  Brain,  161.  Ra- 
tional Psychology,  141,  152,  163, 

170.  Hieroglyphic    Key,    148. 
Dreams,  174-196.    Worship  and 
Love  of  God,  195-197,  203,  207, 
223,224,226,229,231,261.    Ad- 
versaria, described,  229;  cited, 

171,  219,  229-238,  244,  245,  250. 
272,   282.     The  Messiah   about 
to   come    into  the   world,  230. 
Animal     Kingdom,     described, 
147,  152;  cited,    153,   159,   161, 
163,  170,  175,  189,  191,  194,  197, 
200,   261.     Biblical  Index,  249, 
250,  264,  272.     Spiritual  Diary, 
173,  202,  205,  206,  215-222,245- 
253,  264,  265,  282,  283,  322,  410. 
Arcana  Coelestia,  cited,  172,  206, 
217,  220,  222,225,  241-243,  253; 
described   and    cited,  264-275; 
English   translation    of    second 
volume,    265 ;    cost    and   price, 
265  ;  sale  slow,  only  four  copies 
in  two  months,  265  ;  all  but  nine 
copies  sold,  338  ;  purchased  by 
Kant,   125;  sent  to  Dr.    Beyer, 
352.     Intercourse  of   Soul  and 
Body,  126,  173,  271,  314.     On 


472 


INDEX. 


Heaven  and  Hell,  217,218,  271. 
Earths  in  the  Universe,  272. 
Last  Judgment,  284.  Continu- 
ation of  Last  Judgment,  284, 
291.  New  Jerusalem  and  its 
Heavenly  Doctrine,  272,  280. 
White  Horse,  272.  Doctrines 
of  the  Lord,  the  Sacred  Scrip- 
ture, Life,  Faith,  291.  Apoca- 
lypse Explained,  cited,  217,  239, 
240 ;  described,  284-290,  300 ; 
publishers  of,  286,  287,  328. 
Apocalypse  Revealed,  284,  287, 
300;  cited,  305,  351,  354.  Di- 
vine Love  and  Wisdom,  291- 
297.  Divine  Providence,  146, 
225,  238,  297-299.  Conjugial 
Love,  305-308,  360,  363.  Brief 
Exposition,  309,  355.  True 
Christian  Religion,  cited,  209, 
217,  225,  231,  238,256;  publica- 
tion of,  306,  308,  315,  365  ;  style 
and  contents,  316;  bought  by 
Paris  booksellers,  316;  distri- 
bution, 365,  366.  Answer  to  a 
letter  from  a  friend,  314.  An- 
swer to  nine  questions,  314 ; 
Canons  of  the  New  Church, 
315.  Coronis  to  T.  C.  R ,  321. 
Works  declared  heretical,  363 ; 
distributed  to  clergy,  universi- 
ties, etc.,  328,  337,  354,  384; 
their  style,  316. 
Swedenborgianism,  358,  361,  362, 

37°; 

Swedish  Bible,  revised  by  Swed- 
berg,  21,  22,  30. 

Swedish  Church,  in  Delaware  and 
Pennsylvania,  22  (note),  27,  74, 
386 ;  in  Lisbon,  27  ;  in  London, 
17- 

Swedish  Grammar,  17. 

Swedish  King,  Gustavus  Adol- 
phus,  saved  Protestantism  in 
Europe,  117,  415. 

Sweetness  of  perception  of  not  act- 
ing from  one's  self,  410. 


T. 

TAFEL,  J.  F.  I.,  163,  229,  250,  316, 


Tafel,  R.  L.,  62,  66,  161,  230,  264, 
348,  391,  392,  394,  404. 

Temple,  in  vision,  228. 

Temptations  of  Swedenborg,  176- 
179,  182,  183,  205,  237. 

Tessm,  Count,  363. 

Thales,  in. 

Thomas,  112. 

Timber-worm,  93. 

Tracy,  Destutt  de,  119. 

Traill,  Professor  R.,  327. 

Translators  of  Swedenborg,  84, 
96,  209,  305  (note),  317,  325. 

Transporting  vessels  over  land, 
46,  72,  332. 

Trinity,  ideas  upon  the,  182,  231, 
258,  259,  309,  310,  —  angels  ob- 
jected to  those  in  Swedenborg's 
mind,  259;  change  necessary, 
286. 

Trolhatta,  58,  61,  70. 

Truth,  in  descent  changed  to  fal- 
sity, 298. 

Tulk,  Charles  Augustus,  317. 

Tuxen,  General,  328 ;  his  account 
of  Swedenborg,  329-331, — to 
whom  he  reported  what  was 
done  in  Sweden,  362,  411. 


U. 

ULRICA   ELEONORA.     See  Eleo- 

nora. 
Unge,  Dean  and  Magister,  26,  27, 

73-75- 
Universities  first  to  be  instructed, 

354- 

Up  mark,  Professor,  47. 
Upsal,   22 ;  fire  at,  23 ;   Literary 

Society,  38. 

Uses,  good  and  evil,  295. 
Utrecht,  41. 


V. 

VALERIUS,  Professor,  67,  71. 
Vassenius,  63,  69. 
Vaughan,  Thomas,  199. 
Venator,  letter  to,  348. 
Vibrations,  vital  nature  consists 
,    of,  72,  77. 


INDEX. 


473 


Vingdker,  Swedberg  pastor  at,  20, 

21. 

Visions,  various  kinds,  248,  249. 
Voltaire,  120. 
Vortical  theory,  78,  96. 


w. 

WALLERIUS,  Dr.,  387. 

Walpole,  Sir  Horace,  5. 

Warrignon,  41. 

Watts,  Dr.  Isaac,  10,  37,  App.  III. 

Webster,  Daniel,  114. 

Wener,  Lake,  58,  68. 

Wenersborg,  63,  68. 

Wenngren,  350. 

Wesley,  John,   12,   193,  339,  403, 

App.  VI. 

Wetter,  Lake,  47,  68. 
Wetterbey,   Dr.,   his   Altartaflan, 

OQA. 

Whiskey,  Swedenborg  on,  275. 
White,  William,  cited,  20-22. 
Whitefield,  George,  12. 
Wilkinson,  Dr.  J.  J.  G.,  45,  84,  160, 
161,  200,  207,  317. 


Wilson,  Bishop,  n. 

Wisdom,  how  attained,  121,  122. 

Witt,  Secretary,  104. 

Wolf,  Christopher,  104,  105. 

Wolff,  Johan  Christian  von,  95, 
104,  117,  124,  142,405. 

Wollan,  Colonel,  90. 

Word,  The,  of  God,  the  founda- 
tion of  all  wisdom,  79;  full  of 
heavenly  arcana,  213,  214,  233, 
266,  287-298;  interior  senses, 
287,  290,  294,— how  to  be  reveal- 
ed, 214 ;  angels  near  when  man 
reads,  288;  the  source  of  all 
theology,  353. 

Wren,  Sir  Christopher,  37. 

Wurtemberg,  Duke  of,  368. 

Wycliffe,  116. 


Y. 

YSTAD,  51,  92,  151. 

Z. 

ZlNZENDORF,  12,  App.  VI. 


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